Blake Jarrell Gives Tape.Side.Two His Take on the Current State of Electronic Dance Music
Blake Jarrell in photo
In writing this blog on Electronic Dance Music, I hope to eventually ask provocative questions that will get you, the reader, to think, but also highlight new artists that are on the forefront of the EDM scene, changing its landscape and working with the latest technology to get the dance floor moving; whether it is a 2:00 am stormer in the club, or a pad-laden and emotionally-driven tune that can bring out feelings that may not have been noticed before by the listener as he sits in his bedroom listening to the song, allowing him to emote feelings and finding his inner light, revealing his truth to himself that he did not know was there, variably forcing him to reflect on moments in his life that were great, or at the very least, most memorable.
As a mere student of culture, people, and music, I am writing about the music I love, and chronicling the shape of the world in which Electronic Dance Music is thriving, while striving for that perfect song, that perfect mix, and the perfect sound that resonates within. I want to showcase new and upcoming artists ready to break out in to superstardom. However, that is my hope. I want you, my readers, (the ones who listen to this genre) to venture out and buy the latest, but also the greatest songs and albums, of these artists. Of course, what is considered great is completely subjective, but that is a conversation for another day.
Allow me to introduce you to Blake Jarrell. I consider him a DJ, producer, remixer, and artist that can pack a dance floor, while maintaining the emotional integrity of the night’s journey that a DJ can, and some would say, must, create. It goes without saying; his remixes are truly one of a kind, full of emotion that must come from deep within, a world that only a specific type of artist dares to venture. This is what I find in his work.
I want to give you, the reader, insight to Mr. Jarell’s work and the pleasure of understanding how an EDM producer creates a dance floor hit from the first kick to the last high-hat, while making the listener want to just give in to the explosion that is detonated inside his soul when listening to his music.
“In the end, it all really just boils down to house music, it’s the same thing done in slightly different ways” – Blake Jarrell
Tape.Side.Two Where is dance music now? I hate to generalize things and love to explain things in detail, but for the sake of time, trance went progressive, which in turn progressed into electro, then many progressive DJs brought in emotion that allowed the listener to think about today’s world and how it affects himself or herself. Today, it seems like everything is combining and progressive is merging with chunky electro baselines making (progressive) house music that is indescribable to the listener. So I was wondering, where do you think dance music is right now? Can it be defined? Do you dare to define it or let it define itself? Am I wrong at how I described the last ten years of progressive house music? Are there any other influences that caused this change?
Blake Jarrell in photo
Mr. Jerrell I think for the most part you are right about how things have evolved. When I started making music, there was a big move towards progressive breakbeats with atmospheric and emotional elements. Tracks like Lostep’s “Burma” and the Habersham remix of Pat Foosheen’s “The Unthinkable” were really the cutting edge of progressive electronic music for their time. I was heavily influenced by tunes like these and you can hear it in a lot of my early tunes like “Apricot” and “Okoboji”. I think a lot of the progressive guys then, either moved more experimental into the world of Minimal Techno or they went more crowd-pleasing with the emerging Electro House sound. My move from New Orleans (at the time a breakbeat city) to Chicago (obviously a house city) is what really changed my approach in the studio and the reason I started making four-on-the-floor beats. I wasn’t influenced by the global trend, but rather my new location and adapting to it. I wanted to make something that worked in my DJ sets here in the windy city. My first endeavors into that were tunes like the Dane Cook sampling, “Dood I Just Wanna Dance,” and more notably the bootleg remixes I did of Snow Patrol and Anna Nalick. I think that moment in time of being absolutely confused and just saying “screw it” in the studio caused these amazing happy accidents. I didn’t have any idea that they would become successful; I just did them for fun. The Dane Cook thing was definitely influenced by the emerging Electro House sound and the bootlegs were influenced by the big Trance DJ’s I was hearing at the clubs. I never set out to make trance music, but it just ended up appealing to those DJs and that audience. I felt creatively pigeonholed at that point and it was debilitating to me creatively. At this time the big room “Stadium Techno” sound of guys like Dubfire and Simon & Shaker was on the rise…I immediately started playing and trying to make these records in hopes of letting my audience know that I wasn’t all about trance. I’ve since then evolved back into more emotional, melodic, and dare I say trancey tunes, while still maintaining some of the “headiness” of experimental techno and dynamics of big room electro house.
“I think that moment in time of being absolutely confused and just saying ‘screw it’ in the studio caused these amazing happy accidents.”-Blake Jarrell
Dance music, right now, is an amalgamated mess, but it’s very interesting. I think the genre lines are continuing to blur. We’re seeing a lot less purism and more borrowing of techniques across the board. There is this hipster electro house movement thing going on in the USA that is getting a lot of younger kids into the music, something we’ve been forgetting to do the past few years, and it’s a good thing. Guys like Wolfgang Gartner, Deadmau5, Chuckie, Steve Aoki, and even Pretty Lights are exposing a whole new generation to the electronic music world that the club, progressive, and trance crowd wasn’t reaching. I think inevitably these kids will mature and crave more emotional, melodic, and heady music…and that’s where the progressive house and trance sounds come in. With that said, I don’t think it can really be defined creatively, but its more defined by scene, age group, market, etc. To me, the stuff I’m making is no different, it just doesn’t happen to be as intense. I think the younger kids seek the aggression and intensity in Electro House and Dubstep because it’s essentially heavy metal for rave kids. In the end, it all really just boils down to house music, it’s the same thing done in slightly different ways.
Tape.Side.Two Is EDM cyclical or does it flow and progress, constantly changing and evolving? We are told that change is good? Is it? Of course with a hit on the dance floor, not to mention the charts, and of course in sales of the record, itself, one would ask that you, the artist, would want to constantly be changing his style, so that your sound does not become monotonous. Or while creating a song, do you find: a vibe that works, people on the dance floor love, a label that believes in that song (as well as you) and makes money? Then, do you stick to that, not venturing very far from that strategy, which you know for a fact, works?
Mr. Jerrell It is most CERTAINLY cyclical, and I say that all the time. There are always these forays into more aggressive sounds (electro house and dubstep), more drummy (tribal house), more heady (techno/tech house/experimentalism), but it always comes right back to melody and harmony laid over a good groove to dance to. In the end, people want memorable music that they can hum along too or sing back in the crowd with their peers. I think it’s a good thing because it shows what the human condition really craves. They always want to relate to and be part of the music but change is good also in small and short doses. I think these forays yield great results in experimentation of productions and techniques, and when things swing back towards the melodic realm you always see the best techniques from these sprinkled back in sparingly and tastefully. That’s a beautiful evolution to me.
“…it always comes right back to melody and harmony laid over a good groove to dance to… it shows what the human condition really craves”-Blake Jarrell
I try not to think too much about my “style” or worry about getting on the bandwagon of whatever style is popular at the time. I definitely do draw influences from it, but I never try to copycat. I think that’s a HUGE problem going on at the moment. I recently had a twitter conversation with Wippenbergand Ben Gold about this copycat phenomenon going on. It’s getting so bad that people are copying every exact move of a successful track and just changing the melody slightly…and sadly it charts well! This says a lot about how oversaturated the electronic music market is. People are willing to sacrifice all creativity in order to obtain the end result of having a successful track. People are no longer in love with the process and pure altruism of being an artist…working hard, giving it everything you got, doing it because you love it, and expecting nothing in return. Rather, they are seeing it as a way of getting quick recognition, fame, money, girls, a fabulous lifestyle, or whatever the case may be. Sure, a lot of us want that, but this is a sad thing for the artistic aspect of music. However, I have tremendous faith in art and I think it will naturally clean this element out via the consumer. At the end of the day, music lovers aren’t stupid, and they will not reward this behavior much longer. We saw this when people stopped buying CDs because they were paying too much money for 12 songs when only 1 or 2 of them were any good. We’re starting to see it again now with blog culture, youtube, and people just straight up refusing to pay for music because there is way too much of it and no quality control. Quincy Jones said it best in a recent interview “The record company industry is OVER…” and I think he’s right. That’s why I don’t worry too much about record labels or distribution anymore. The business side, especially marketing, is getting harder and harder for the powers that be to control. Everything is viral now and it is going to continue as long as the internet is around. The fans are getting more say in what music they are exposed to, and I think that is a wonderful thing.
Tape.Side.Two Every DJ has his own vibe. Every artist has his own style. Whether it is technical or emotional, what would you consider yours to be?
Mr. Jerrell As a DJ I’ve always tried to walk the fine line between entertaining and educating the crowd. I feel like if you lean too much one way you are doing yourself a disservice and if you lean too far the other way you are undermining your audience. I really miss the old days where DJs like Sasha, Danny Tenaglia, Danny Howells, and loads of others would play a whole night, beginning to end, for 8 or more hours telling a story and working up an incredible vibe. That to me is what true DJing is all about. I think nowadays DJ sets are moving more towards being artist showcases where a producer who just so happens to DJ shows up and plays an hour or two of his hit songs. For me as a music fan, this is ok every now and then, once or twice to see a favorite producer of mine perform, but it creates no desire for me to see that artist again because I’ll have already heard all of his songs played in his own set and the DJ sets of other DJs. Every time I went to go see those legendary DJs, their sets would be completely different and sometimes contain none of their own hits at all. Sometimes I was even a little let down but most of the time the sets were some of the most memorable experiences of my life and I was always curious to see them again and still am to this day. I feel like that magic is starting to fade in DJ sets these days. I’m trying to correct that with my residencies and Concentrate nights in cities like Chicago and Montreal where there are some amazing clubs, fans, and promoters who all “get it.”
“As a DJ I’ve always tried to walk the fine line between entertaining and educating the crowd.”-Blake Jarrell
As an artist or producer I try to do the same thing. I believe every artist should write exactly what they want to write, whenever they want to write it, but I think it’s also important to be careful about how it is released and whether or not your existing fans will “get it”. I used to want to release every single thing I made and lately I’ve realized some stuff is better off kept to myself or put out under an alias. There is too much music out there, too much confusion, so I only release the stuff that I think will have the best chance at connecting with my audience and what matches their taste or their idea of what Blake Jarrell or Concentrate is all about. I make mistakes and I learn from them. That’s the best part about being an artist for me: the learning process and growing creatively.
Tape.Side.Two Mashups are in right now and it seems dance music is trying to find a sound leaning toward the underground, juxtaposed to a radio-friendly sound. What is your perspective on this? Or is the progression of EDM, where it is and where it is going not so easily simplified?
Mr. Jerrell I like mashups every now and then and have even done a few myself. I, however, have never taken artistic credit for them and don’t think that it’s justified if all I’m doing is slapping an acapella over a finished song, layering two songs together, or editing the arrangement of the song, etc. Sure, I’ve created something “new” but art is in the eye of the beholder and I don’t necessarily consider that “art”, not from my judgments on my own creativity at least. I try to hold my own art to a higher standard than that, I guess. My perspective is that it is the natural evolution of the music, the technology available, and the fact that some songs are better without their original beat and replaced with something that expresses it more completely. It’s sometimes more exponentially magical to hear two songs you love mashed together. Other times it feels like a complete tragedy. I rarely play mashups unless they are my own
Tape.Side.Two It seems like a lot of songs on and off the radio are being remixed. I consider you to be one of the best remixers today, creating a new vibe for a specific song to be played for the dance floor, while maintaining the songs original integrity, thus creating a stormer, something new and awesome, never heard before. These days, from a listener’s perspective, a DJ can do this in the booth at a moments notice using such tools, such as Ableton Live and like programs. What are your thoughts on this, creating a new sound or mashing up different songs on the fly for the dance floor or in your studio?
Mr. Jerrell Thank you. I’m a HUGE proponent of DJ and live performance technology in electronic music. I absolutely love it and love seeing it live and reading about it in magazines or on the internet. I used to DJ and do live remixes and even live on the fly performance and production with Ableton Live back in 2002-2005 when it was still “not cool” or accepted to use a computer in the DJ booth. People, especially other DJs who were ignorant to the technology, thought that Ableton did all the work for you, and nothing could be further from the truth. My, how times have changed. A vast majority of DJs now use programs like Serato and Traktor, especially local club DJs, and this technology definitely DOES do most of the work for you! It’s amazing. When I used Ableton you had to painstakingly warp marker all of your tracks and clips by hand, yourself, which is considerably more work and time consuming than the auto beat detect of today’s popular programs and I would go as far as to say it was harder then beatmatching with a pitch control on a turntable. Not only that, a considerable amount of time was required getting your session view prepared and laid out and everything midi mapped so that you could actually use the program like a musical instrument, where’s the lack of integrity in playing a musical instrument on stage? Now that they’ve dumbed this process down in Traktor and Serato to the point that my dog could DJ a perfect set, it’s suddenly accepted into the norm. It is what it is I guess. I don’t look down on people who use those programs though…all that matters at the end of the day is good music coming out of the speakers. I just think its ironic how attitudes change only when the masses can get their head around it and use it themselves.
Tape.Side.Two In general, how does the crowd react? Can they tell the difference? Do they know and understand the work that is put in on the spot and can you feel the vibe reciprocated back to you in the DJ booth not only from the men and women on the dance floor who waited weeks to see you, but the guy out there who knows his music and knows exactly what you’re doing? Or is the trick to make it seamless so the audience doesn’t know exactly what you are doing in the booth?
Mr. Jarrell That is another hilarious phenomenon as well. The average person on the dancefloor could not care less if the music is being performed via computer, turntable, instrument etc. It’s the 20 other DJs and forum chinstrokers in the crowd that are wallflowering themselves in the corner that always have to pass their two cent judgement on it. But like I said before, I think today it’s a lot more accepted because it’s been pioneered so hard for years by guys like Sasha and Richie Hawtin who had to take the brunt of the ignorance for so long. Another point here or good philosophy rather, would be that nothing said on forums really matters (which is really the only place where people voice their opinion on these things.) In the end, all that matters is the fans dancing to your music on the dancefloor and good music coming out of the speakers…however you may choose to do it.
Blake Jarrell in Photo
Tape.Side.Two In using such techniques, and pioneering new ones, what has been the response from other DJ’s, producers, artists, and labels? And do you take it as helpful criticism to aid your work, or do you block it out and go with your gut instinct?
Mr. Jerrell That really depends on what context you are asking about me using it in. I’m guessing you are referring to it in a live performance situation? If so, I no longer use a computer or Ableton Live for performance. Not because I don’t want to, but because it’s just so damn hard to travel with and rely on. I feel I can get my point across really well DJing on the new Pioneer CDJ2000s using USB sticks for my source audio. This keeps travelling even lighter. Pioneer products are also industry standard so you can request them in your rider everywhere very easily and they are very trustworthy, battle hardened pieces of gear that stand up to a major beatdown. I have gotten some online criticisms of using USB sticks because, again, people don’t understand what is actually going on with them. There seems to be this belief that the set is prerecorded and just played back from the USB stick, but what people don’t realize is the individual song files on the USB sticks load up exactly like the individual song files when putting in a CD and all the same beatmatching and performance are required as you would if you were playing vinyl or CDs. I don’t take these criticisms to heart like I used to when I was getting harped on for using Ableton because I know now that with time these attitudes will fade as people decide to educate themselves on the technology instead of arguing from ignorance.
Tape.Side.Two Is it constant battle to keep up with the newest of technology? Or does a real DJ just know how it’s done and does it right?
Mr. Jerrell I wouldn’t say that it’s a battle for me. I really find it exciting when new gear comes out. The evolution of what we had back in 2005 to what we have today in 2011 is just mind-blowing. If you could go back in time to 2005 and use some of the stuff we are using today you would probably be burned at the stake. It’s all evolving so fast and at exponential rates that it is hard to imagine the future of it, but I’m really looking forward to learning it and using it.
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For all you Blake Jarrell fans out there, here’s a sweet and savory taste of some of his original productions and remixes. You can almost feel the sweat dripping from the DJ booth. So take a listen and enjoy these gems. They are quite wonderful. You will definitely get up and start dancing before you are finished!
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Blake Jarrell was heralded by John Digweed as “definitely someone to look out for in the future." If you already have one of his DJ mix albums or are on the edge of whether to make the purchase, check out his Podcast. He delivers it hard and hot with his take on the latest crowd-pleasing tracks while sneaking in his own originals and remixes which are truly one of a kind. If you like the progressive sound with a melody that will get you dancing, just remember to turn up the volume. Please download his podcast here:
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Visit Blake Jarrell’s Soundcloud site and you might get your hands on a special mix or if you’re lucky, a bootleg of one of your favorite songs…dare I say his remix of Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars!”
Please visit Blake Jarrell's own sites:
-by Jason T. Eaton
Tape.Side.Two@gmail.com
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