Jaytech is known for his uplifting and melodic progressive beats, and for his smooth trance releases. Long associated with Anjunabeats, Jaytech (James Cayzer) has been a long time favourite of Above & Beyond and many other trance acts that enjoy his beautiful melodic style. He hails from Australia but now has established himself firmly in Berlin as he is in the midst of setting up his studio there just in time for his upcoming album release which is due out in the Summer. EDM Canada has managed to catch up with Jaytech just ahead of his Friday event in Toronto as he co-headlines the Code Red Tour with Super 8 & Tab at Maison Mercer. Read on as James discusses his background, the upcoming album, his love for Star Trek and Star Wars, real "progressive house", and much more:
EDM Canada: Give me a brief history of Jaytech.
Jaytech: Well I started in sunny Australia, I grew up in Canberra, the capital city. I was always involved in music as my Aunt and Mother first got me involved in piano when I was at the age of 5. I had a very classical music upbringing as I used to play piano in competitions in Australia. I was always heading towards some kind of career in music. I was also a massive computer nerd at the same time so when I hit my teenage years I attended my first all ages rave with Ferry Corsten playing, who was the first DJ that I ever saw. So that's the first time I discovered this electronic trance music. I decided then and there that when I grew up that I would be doing that type of music, to travel the world, share music with people, and be based in Europe. (laughs) That sudden decision came to me when I was 14 years old. I've just been working at it ever since. My whole take about music is that I wanted to be the whole Star Trek of the music world. Star Trek always inspired me because it wasn't afraid to be intelligent and to have some depth to it. Dance music sometimes loses its way a little bit because dance music is a sort of commercially oriented and a mass appeal driven market. Most of the dance music I listen to or that I see is designed first and foremost to make people dance while I want to try to tell more of a story to it. For me the story is one of the most important elements in my electronic music over the last 10 years.
Describe your style.
Jaytech: It's always melodic because of my classic background. It's always been based around chord progressions and I think chord progressions and melodies sit at the centre of most of my musical ideas. It's a little bit geeky and I think my sound is a little bit DIY (Do It Yourself) because when I started I had no formal idea of what I was doing and when I started writing music with computers, nobody was taking it seriously and there were no resources on how to do it. A lot of the core aspects of my style come from learning how to do things in a very experimental and unorthodox way.
Do you start your tracks from a live instrumentation background or do you just start messing around with your computer?
Jaytech: I try to make the approach different for every type of track. In the past the sort of standout records that I've had had a different process of making the track every time. The software that I used was very different as I'm always back and forth between different programs. At the moment I'm leaning more towards Ableton Live but I also use Logic quite a bit. Some of the idea that I do have been floating around in my head for quite a long time. Musicall the tracks for my next album are just complete in my head before I'm even putting down my first notes. With the clubbier tracks I tend to start it with the kick drums and beats, and just go from there. I think it's good to mix it up as well because it lets people see different sides of your artistic imprint. I think it's good to have a very different approaches because it makes for more variety in the tracks.
You're working on a brand new artist album this year, what can you tell me about it?
Jaytech: It's getting pretty close as we're looking for a summer release. There's going to be a lot of electro-progressive stuff on there as well as some material that people will come to expect from me. It's going to be a very danceable album. I think the driving force behind this album is to have these tracks to play out at big events, festivals, and get a great response. There will be some recurring artists from previous albums as well as some new ones - there's a bunch of vocals already recorded. It's coming down to producing everything now in the studio which I'm doing now.
Can you name the collaborations that you will be having on your new album?
Jaytech: I'm pushing to get this collaboration I did with Boom Jinx as part of the tracklist on the album because I think it would be a really good fit. I never had a collaboration on an album before as I've only used other artists to perform things like guitar parts before. But the track I did with Boom Jinx a few years ago called “Milano” is one of the most identifiable tracks either one of us have had. I think this track I did with him is of the same callibre and it would be a shame not to put it on the tracklist. So I'm going to see where that goes. Either way that will be a cool new release from him and I.
What about vocals, any names you'd like to share at this time?
Jaytech: I definitely have some stuff with Steve Smith who I worked with on “Stranger”. There will be some new lead vocal tracks from Serenade as well. She featured in the last album as a more backing vocalist because they were recorded in less than ideal conditions and didn't use her to her full potential. For this album we recorded a few vocal numbers for 2 tracks in a studio in Melbourne that I was listening to via Skype. I was patched in for the whole setup while she was singing and I could everything that was going on during recording. The results from that have been really good.
What kind of story do you want to tell with your upcoming album?
