rákù na . . . . . easy does it . . . . .
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rákù na . . . . . easy does it . . . . .
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| profile: | e-z rollers | 1996 |
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Jay Hurren and Alex Banks have known eachother since their schooldays in the rural South East of England and started dj-ing in 1988. Alex's background is more in hiphop and Jay's influences are mainly soul and jazz. Together they call themselves E-Z Rollers and they are two of the most important producers on the Moving Shadow label. Alex is also the brain behind Hyper On Experience (together with Danny Demierre of Flytronix) and responsible for that moment in hardcore's history called Lord Of The Null Lines and also produced tracks for Peshay and Foul Play. Jay made his name with Andrew Riches as JMJ & Richie and anyone who has ever heard the atmospheric classics Free La Funk or Universal Horn will never forget them. Recently the E-Z Rollers compiled the compilatiom Storm From The East [note: part two has now been released.... great!] with deep drum & bass tracks by Alex, Jay and local pals PFM, Flytronix and Tekniq. And there’s the debut album Dimensions Of Sound, a work of dedication by Jay, Alex and twenty-year-old singer Kelly Richards, filled with easy-going grooves and rhythms. With Photek's remix of their first release Rolled Into 1, the Speed trancer Blow, a laid-back remix by Droppin Science and the half-tempo funker Jazz Talkin with beautiful vocals by Kelly. Intricate music made to sound suspiciously simple. E-Z Rollers just spoil your ears! But enough blurb. Jay Hurren is right here on the phone... Here are the Q's; here are the A's. I understand that you still have to maintain nine-to-five jobs. Is that true? Jay: "I still have to work besides it. Jay doesn't. And Kelly also has a full time job." And still release such an album. How did you do it? Jay: "Alex, how DID we ever make the album?" Alex: "It's the chemicals in the water! They're quite liberal around here. We also experimented a long time with drums." "But it took us six years to make this album. And especially during the last year we worked dedicatedly on it." You must be very happy then that the album's been released now? "Yes... after it came out we didn't do anything for a whole month!" The E-Z Rollers sound is quite a mellow sound and much more accessible than most other drum & bass. Is that a conscious choice? "Eigenlijk we're a bit concerned about our 'mellow sound', or more precisely the image we have .. that. We also like the Photek stuff and we're gonna make our tracks harder. We don't want to be limited to one style. We aim to give every track a listening vibe, so that everyone can listen to it, but also a club vibe. Look, people don't just like one style of music. We want to combine both aspects. And jungle indeed has become more popular now; the music has grown up and people that didn't listen to jungle a couple of years ago now do listen to it because it is more musical now. It's no longer associated with dodgy rave music but accepted as music." More and more jungle producers are beginning to make half tempo tracks. Is that because the public is more open to that now, that drum & bass artists can also make slow tracks, especially since Photek's Into The 90s? "We've always been into it, but now we can finally combine it on one record." Where exactly do you come from? "From East Anglia in the far south of England, opposite Wales. It's the closest thing to France, actually." Is it this more rural environment that makes your music sound a bit more laid-back? "That's right, yeah. Londen can be so fast and furious that you can hardly get any work done. And just like the music of Photek and Source Direct tells something about that hundred-miles-an-hour lifestyle I think you can hear it in our music... it's quite chilled. There was a time when we didn't use the term 'jungle'. What was, for you personally, the most influential record from that time in the development towards jungle? "One of the tracks that blew me away was The Orbit by Speedy J on Plus 8. Very subtle and I love the Detroit influence. A big inspiration for our music was LTJ Bukem's Demon's Theme. I've known Bukem for more than five years and I remember getting it on tape at the end of 1991. That track gripped me totally and it gave such a different twist to breakbeat then, it was a total turning point." Which track would you really like to remix? "Everybody Loves The Sunshine by Roy Ayers' Ubiquity or Gil Scott Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. We're going to remix a track by Interstella by the way. We used a vocal sample of their's for Free La Funk and when they called us we naturally were worried. But it turned out they quite liked Free La Funk and they asked us if we would like to remix their track The Past!" Do you prefer classic breaks or like to program the drums yourself? "More a combination of the two. Alex is the real drum machine wizard, he porduces most of the breakbeats and percussion. We also buy many new jazz records for breaks. For instance, we sample two and a half minutes of live drum stuff and add percussion to it. It's always our aim to find new breaks otherwise it starts to get boring. There are not many flowing, rolling live jazz drum solos so you have to give it enough groove yourself." (For those who like to experiment themselves with E Z Rollers breaks there are two handy sample cd's compiled by Alex Banks, available by mail order from Time & Space, Great Britain.) Is it true that a core of hardliners want to keep drum & bass very underground, inaccessible for mass audiences? "That's never been our scene. A good example is Everything But The Girl who together with Spring Heel Jack wrote the hit Walking Wounded. And that was played on the radio but they didn't make it too smooth. Or the track Candles by Alex Reece, that's a real step forward in working with vocals. People just have to respect that there's more than just any one style. You have the analogue sounds and oldish beats of (Roni) Size, the jazzy side of Fabio, the rough side of Goldie, the Bukem style." How will drum & bass sound in about ten years' time? "Jungle didn't have suc a good reputation three years ago. But it's a more populist state of music these days. And technology moves so quickly, the music develops so rapidly that I don't like to look ten years forward. What are your future plans? "At the moment we are working on the new single. We want to make three new versions; one for the clubs, because a track always has to be suitable for dj's, a full vocal version for the radio and also a slowbeat version. But what's also exciting, I'm busy with the follow-up to Storm From The East. That compilation received such good reactions that it all went faster than expected. I hope that Photek will have time for a contribution and I'm also trying to bring in new artists. In any case E Z Rollers, PFM, Flytronix and Digital will take part. And the new act Excelsior, a real mystery act." Could you give us a hint who's behind it? "It's two people and I know them both. And one releases work on Formation and the other on Moving Shadow. And that's all I'm gonna tell. The release of Storm From The East II is planned around Christmas, so you'll see it then." Who are your favourite producers? "PFM, Aqua Sky, Photek, Source Direct." And finally, what is your all-time top five? "1. Gil Scott Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, 2. Miles Davis - Bitches Brew, 3. Lonnie Liston Smith - Expansions, 4. LTJ Bukem - Music Rework 96 by Peshay, 5. PFM, Aqua Sky, Photek, Source Direct." That's all folks... This is Rumble, signing off. :-) |
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