Following some superb performances in London and Brighton, I caught up with J Bostron (Jamie Bolstrom) to get a few words about his material and what’s gwaan with him up in Scotland and back at his home in Ireland. For the record, Jamie is a pretty cool guy and he helped us out a lot while he was down. Hopefully we’ll see him touring again in the New Year.

With so much ground covered already, is there still room for experimentation in jungle / drum n bass?

I think the boundaries are certainly there to be pushed. Experimentation and a general move away from the norm are all part and parcel of development within genres. Drum & Bass has always relied very heavily on structure and formula, even the drum patterns go along way to making drum & bass what it is. I think this has hindered those wanting to push new directions within it, those trying to develop and take chances with tempo / structure / dynamics in tracks.

I think the recent prominence of Dubstep has started to influence the sounds in quite a lot of other new music. Do you think it has affected the sound and feel of your own tunes?

Dubstep hasn’t affected my Drum & Bass/Jungle production at all. There is a little touch of wobble here and there, but that has always been prevalent in drum & bass music, even in my own production. I think the dubstep sound suits my style of drum & bass better as some of my ideas can be a bit sparse n minimal, but again its just another direction to take things in. Personally I quite like the Dubstep sound even though I was not originally a big fan of garage.

Is there anyone who you think in particular has influenced your work?

It’s probably quite archetypal to say Remarc (Godfather of the Amen Break), as most dnb / jungle producers would cite him along the way, but it was hearing Remarc’s fierce and reckless use of the amen break that really turned me onto the jungle sounds and the possibilities within.
One of my biggest influences is a lot of the current crop of underground artists. There is an absolute wealth of unsigned and underground talent out there doing interesting things with drum & bass as well as ragga and jungle from all over the world. There are the likes of the FBI Crew DJ’s from Russia are throwing up some ridiculous ragga-jungle style tracks straight outta St. Petersburg. The likes of Babylon Demolitionist, Jammin Jay, Nkogliaz, Tester, Debaser, Krinjah, Ekzo, Subcomandante, Eminence, Infra Dread and Criminal Sound gave me a taste of the deeper side of jungle.
From the more established drum & bass producers Visionary, Total Science, SS, Roni, Benny Page, Shy FX, Congo Natty plus plenty of others all had some influence over the direction of my own production and my desire to create jungle sounds.

As you know Net-Lab has some close ties with folks over in Ireland, and especially Galway. Where does your own history fit into your music?

Galway was an interesting place to grow up definitely. Not your average sort of place but while starved for music venues and live shows we had an absolute abundance of amazing local talent in DJ’s MCs and artists. I really appreciate my time spent in Galway as it served as quite a comprehensive music education over the years from metal and rock through hip hop, punk and finally into techno, electro and jungle. Nowadays we have an awful lot of underground electronic artists all over the country some of them doing really interesting things.

Does producing tunes in Scotland affect your sound?

I’d have to say it probably does. The lack of a varied drum & bass scene in Scotland means the crowds aren’t used to hearing the diversity of drum & bass, thus making it quite difficult if u ever want to play in Scotland to do something like ragga-jungle or off-the-wall drumfunk tunes. Sad but true, for the moment anyway.

I thought that your remix of “The Way It Is” was one of the stand out tracks on your release. Can you tell us a little about “Jammin Jay” and how you know him?

Jammin Jay is based in Edinburgh. I met him a few years ago now when we both worked night jobs and it was actually Jay that turned my head from DJing to the production side of things. He taught me quite a lot to begin with, basics of editing, sampling and sequencing and then it really took off. Now we spend our time swapping ideas, tips and anything we might have learned since our last session together. Living in Glasgow at the moment we are collaborating less but this wont always be the case.

Can you run us through a quick overview of your creative process? For example, do you start making a track with some idea of what you want it to sound like, or is it pure experimentation?

With alot of the reggae styled tracks I make, they tend to start off with a reggae loop or skank loop or even a reggae style string. I’ve heard a lot of people say they start with a drumtrack first, this I do second. After laying down a drum track with my reggae vibe, ill then add a bassline and maybe some more instrumentation. when I am happy with all this I will start eqing and tidying up, bringing it more together. next ill add some track fx and sounds, fill out the piece and try to mix it as well as I can.

Let’s talk about dub and reggae influences for a minute.

I’ve always been interested in where samples have come from. Learning about the old soul/funk records sampled all through hip hop really gave me that cratedigging vibe, the idea of finding wicked samples and using them to devastating effect, and tracing samples back through their history of use to the original record. This inspired me to find out more n more about reggae as I listened to more n more jungle. This gave me a small amount of knowledge about classic reggae and ragga artists which enabled me to search out n discover even more of this music.

Dancehall has gone through a troublesome period of review over the past few years because of its deeply ingrained religious views, especially toward homosexuals. Do you think that dub and reggae, with the same Rastafarian origins, hold similar views, and do you think that is relevant to any of the music that is influenced by it in modern times?

I don’t think religious views or anti-homosexuality has anything to do with drum & bass or jungle as such so I don’t think it’s relevant to this type of music. I don’t know enough regarding the actual dancehall and ragga scene to comment on it other than from a drum & bass point of view.

Who do you feel is really putting forward the best live show in dnb / jungle at the moment?

There are actually very few actually live shows in d&b. Most of the big acts just DJ, there isn’t the same scene for livesets as there is within other genres of dance music. More recently pendulum have done a drum & bass “live-band” tour and apparently it was pretty successful. Maybe now we will see a shift towards it. Dev Paradox is one of the few producers doing a typical live set for his shows. He says the main problem is the amount of kit he needs to carry as he still uses a lot of hardware equipment. Laptops and the digital environments could have a significant effect on this at some stage.

Wrong Music had a Christmas bash at the Volks in Brighton on Wednesday night. I turned up at about half eleven to a quarter full main room watching Ed Tudor Pole (from the Crystal Maze). He was playing some tunes that sounded a lot like Country and Western to me.

Here’s a picture:

Then this guy burst out of the crowd and started playing the spoons and dancing around in a high-vis jacket:

It was amusing never the less. But it did seem a little sad for some reason. I’m not sure why.

This band called Sloath (featuring Kai and the bassist from Charlottefield) played afterwards who were pretty impressive. Their stuff was pretty apocalyptic, and they had a fight with the bar manager, so it was all good.

Piratio and John Cohen played a few of their new tunes too.

Anyway, by the time Sloath came on the place had filled out and it was a good night.

If I can be bothered to upload a video of Ed Tudor Poll or the spoons guy, I will.

Hello friends,

Unfortunately due to some changes in plans with the original venue, our New Year’s Eve party has been canceled.

You can check out lots of Net-Lab artists at events in 2008 though, and we have lots of new material ready to go any day now, so please keep checking back.

Have a good Christmas and New Year without us!

I would recommend going to the thing on London for NYE with Kode9, Faggatronix, Prancehall and the rest, but I can’t find the flyer or information. When I find it I’ll probably post it. Until then try googling. Don’t go to some swag night still though.

Rich