[ t e x t . o n l y . v e r s i o n ] [ b y . a l i a s ]
With their no-holds barred techno, which also incorporates elements of
electro, hip hop, breakbeat and turntablism the Space DJZ -- Ben Long and
Jamie Bismire -- are in demand the world over.
Intelligent, dynamic, and precise, the Space DJZ prove an irresistible duo.
An aural explosion which owes as much to the sounds of Detroit as it does
to the pitch of modern day turntablism. Jamie Bismire and Ben Long have
known each other for a long time. Their shared passion for BMX riding,
graffiti and electro music brought them together. 'We didn't start off on
music,' Bismire offers, 'it started off riding BMX's, and then into electro
music, breakdancing, and going off and doing graffiti and playing drums. I
used to have a drumkit at my house, and Ben used come and wake me up at
like half-nine in the morning eager as ever to go out and BMX, and I used
to roll out of bed and let him into my room, go back to bed, and he used to
play the drums for half and hour!'
When both had even a small amount of spare time they would head to the
studio and record the results -- the intention being purely to have fun.
Their initial excursions directly reflected their basic influences -- hip
hop and electro -- and the duo set about to approach techno's basic
principals with a breakbeat driven mentality. They assumed the Space DJZ
handle, and as they say the rest is history. With releases on such
respected labels such as Reload, Ongaku, and NovaMute; as well as countless
releases both individually and collectively on their own labels Ground and
Potential, Long and Bismire have proven that they certainly have the goods,
with such icons as David Holmes and Dave Clarke singing their praises.
Jamie is no stranger to such acclaim. His work with John O' Connell and
Lucien Thompson in the reggae flavoured dance outfit Bandulu are legendary
(even taking them to such festivals as Glastonbury, T in the Park, and
intriguingly WOMAD). The fact that Long and Bismire have been close for so
long helps immensely. Their four deck-two mixer live performance is complex
to say the least, a frantic three hour charge that sees both operate as one
entity. 'We do definitely function as one unit,' states Jamie. That's not
to say things are rosy all the time. 'We have our ups and downs y'know!' he
chuckles. 'Sometimes I'm thinking "Ben will you fucking stop playing that
record and just let me finish what I am doing" and I'm sure he sometimes
thinks the same, and of course we have all sorts of little tiffs, but we
have known each other for so long, and we've been through a lot together.'
When you witness the two perform together this bond is obvious. Words are
hardly spoken between the two, and eye contact is minimal. Both know what
needs be done, where it has to be done, and when it has to be done. 'There
is a lot of history there and it does help,' Jamie explains. 'Especially
when we do the whole Space DJZ presentation -- four decks, two mixers, the
909 -- when we are scratching and doing all sorts of things it really comes
in hand. We both understand about timing and rhythm.'
It comes about that the Space DJZ trademark four deck mash up was conceived
accidentally, as Jamie points out. 'The first time we did it we'd never
practised doing the four decks thing out in public, we just thought let's
do it because there was another deck there and another mixer. So we just
wired it up and it kicked right off. We were like "this is so much fun!",
we hadn't practised at all and it was sounding like this. It went out live
on the Internet so we managed to have a listen to the results and it
sounded really good, so we thought we would have to make a spectacle out of
it.'
Utilising four decks, the Space DJZ have managed to find a new slant on the
live techno experience. 'It's like having a giant mixing desk,' Jamie
illustrates. 'We didn't really want to take the Space DJZ out as a live
act, that is why we developed the four deck idea further, because we wanted
to give people something different. It's always a bit of a battle playing
live, that's why we opted out for playing the actual records and mixing
them up in a different fashion and making it exciting in other ways.'
The group have just completed their debut album. Titled "On Patrol" it is a
stunning and accomplished debut. A techno album which challenges the mind,
yet never forgets its main intention -- to get people on the dancefloor.
From the dubby hip hop of "Nice Vibes", to the more straight-ahead minimal
tech stormers "Solaris" and "Tracer", "On Patrol" is a gripping piece of
work, which manages to encompass the varied influences and backgrounds of
the individuals behind it. The process behind it was a hard and challenging
one.
'We had to refine it,' explains Jamie, 'because for a while there we did go
a little off the wall for a while when we were making the album and the
first one we put together did have a lot of strange tracks on it, a lot of
weirder kind of things and a lot of experimenting. After we arranged the
first album we were like -- "hang on a minute, this is all fair and well
experimenting in other sounds besides the Space DJZ sound, but we really
have to keep focussed on what our audience is about as well." People listen
to Space DJZ and probably 80 per cent of the people who go out and buy our
releases are going to know us, so we have to remember that people expect
certain things from us, so we can't go off on our own sort of tangent and
make everyone want to listen to ten hip hop tracks when people want listen
to techno. We did this and then realised that we couldn't do it -- if I was
buying a Jeff Mills album I'd want certain things from it -- so we thought
we would give back the things you expect from the Space DJZ, yet at the
same time put in a couple of different things to show our different side.'
"On Patrol" is also a rare example of an act making the successful
transition from the twelve inch to the full album format without a hint of
over indulgence. Jamie puts it into perspective. "Do y'know what it is
basically. Artists make twelve inches and know what they are making them
for, yet as soon as they get to do an album it all starts to go wrong.
They're sitting there smoking out and getting all self indulgent, and you
can do that -- because that's your art and you need to get self indulgent
and go up your own arse -- but at the end of the day you have to come out
of your own arse and remember what everyone else wants from you as well. A
lot of techno artists tend to experiment and go off on tangents, and when
you get the album you're like "well where are the banging tracks, where's
the real techno anthem on there?" I think you've got to have at least one
of them on every techno album!'
Sadly the techno nature of "On Patrol" meant that some more left of centre
numbers could not be included. The group had been working with British MC
Rage of the Speech Therapy crew on a few hip hop tracks which sound
absolutely fascinating. 'You don't necessarily release a hip hop track on a
techno album, not because you shouldn't or you can't, it's just that it
could be missed or not as appreciated as you thought it might,' Jamie
explains.
'We have done a lot of work with him, and we went out live with him as
well, and it was excellent having the four decks with him rhyming over the
top. The track we did with him is such a good track, and it would be nice
to release it somewhere where it would really get appreciated, rather than
on a techno label where out of the 4000 people that buy the single, 800 of
them like it.'
Space DJZ enjoy coming to Australia. "I had such a good time in Australia!"
he enthusiastically declares. 'It's just like (insert bad Australian
accent) "no worries mate!" No wonder you lot say that, everyone's got no
worries! Thought it was brilliant, had a great time, really friendly people
and everyone was really nice. Such a change from England, a different
world! We just went mad for a couple of weeks. We thought the scene was
really healthy in Melbourne and Perth, wasn't too impressed with Sydney --
too many English people -- I'd come to get away from them!'
Space DJZ's world travels give the guys a chance to expose the sounds of
"On Patrol" to a new group of people. 'It's something to get ourselves
into. We are releasing the album for a number of different reasons, but one
of them is to get our sound out to a wider amount of people so we can get
more gigs in more different places, and get people in diverse areas to hear
our music,' Jamie says before offering me some refreshing honesty. 'We want
to be more popular and we want to sell more records!'
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