Next up in our series to track the movements and latest musical leanings of our summer residents in our interview and mix combination creatively titled “Where are you now…”. Ahead of his appearance in our New Year double-header the man with the most risque press shots in dance music, Jem Haynes, brought his A-game to the table during the summer, opening up the Discoteca for the likes of Ivan Smagghe, Simian Mobile Disco, Joris Voorn and Carl Craig. Not only did he carry off the tricky art of balancing energy and restraint in warming the main room, he also brought his house sounds to both terraces including a spectacular morning closing La Terraza on the night of Spain’s world cup victory. There was also time to tear up the Red Box too. He’s an uncanny ability to combine moods and genres within a single set while reading the crowd that gives his sound a uniquely club orientated edge. Give the mix a listen and you’ll see what we mean. It’s a fine assemblage of beats, loops, breaks and you can download it in hight quality MP3 from his profile page.
So while you listen… Jem Haynes, where are you now?
You spent the summer either lolling around in the sun or playing music for thousands at Space, now you seem to be spending a lot of time in what you refer to as the “rave cave”. Is this your form of hibernation?
Hibernation or studio rehabilitation whatever you want to call it! The Rave Cave is where I produce and engineer all the music for our label Loop Recordings. It’s situated in the basement of Martin’s house and has a great vibe to it. The room has been decked out with some brilliant early 90s (rave flyer) style paintings on the walls as well as being equipped with pretty much everything we need to have a good time down there! I didn’t have a studio space in Ibiza so I used to sit in the sun with my laptop and headphones on and put down ideas after I had played at the club on Sundays. That’s usually the time when I have new ideas about beats, bass lines, melodies or edits of tracks that go down really well at the club. I would come back into the villa and someone would always say “Jem’s brown..” after sitting in the sun working on tracks for ages, so I started using that as my alias for the cheeky edits I do. A couple of them are sandwiched in this mix I did with the new Traktor S4 controller, which is a great new piece of equipment that enables you to play lots of loops, trigger samples as well as playing some strange pads and whooshes along the way! This is pretty much the start of a live setup which I’m keen to expand on next year, adding Ian and Martin into the mix.
Cave of rave
It’s working really well, surprisingly! I am the Loop Recordings studio engineer and produce tracks with Martin and Ian, as well as producing my own tracks. Ian is the resident drummer / internet tech dude and Martin plays guitar and DJs as well. We all performed together for the first time on the Sunset Terrace last summer, with myself and martin on four decks and FX and Ian on his Roland V drums and percussion. We had so much fun and a got a great crowd response, so I wanted to take it a step further and create a live show making the most of our different musical abilities. It is a work in progress so watch this space.
Mug loop
Im ashamed to say nothing too rock n’ roll! We didn’t even drink a bottle of vodka between us. Myself and Andrew were absolutely blown away by the venue which overlooks the whole city of Montenegro and holds 2500 people on a tuesday night. Add to that some very expensive lights and lasers, some bikini clad girls dancing in a spa pool and a few dodgy looking eastern european soldier types lurking in the vip area… I think we probably made the right decision!
Pictures provided by the man himself Jem Haynes, you can find him on facebook, twitter and myspace.
