Toyko House Underground interviews Milton Jackson

Toyko House Underground interviews Milton Jackson

22 September, 2010 | 2.45AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Music News: apt. international, milton jackson, studio apartment

In celebration of his new Destination EP for the Tokyo House Underground series—a new venture from Studio Apartment‘s label Apt. International—Keita Takahashi sits down with Glasgow’s Milton Jackson to talk about distance and destinations.

First, I would like to hear about your musical roots. What kind of music has influenced you and which artists led you into electronic music? Do you think these influences reflect your current productions?

I started out listening to electronic music from the mid to late ‘90s. I used to love drum’n’bass and of course house music. When I was younger it was guys like Kerri Chandler and LTJ Bukem that were my favourite. As I’ve gotten older I’m enjoying the deeper melodic techno sound, for example Steven Tang. I think the early drum’n’bass sound does reflect my current productions; I try to emulate that vibe on my current tracks and look to those old tracks for inspiration.

I want to ask you about Glasgow, where you were born. I think many talented and unique artists are from Glasgow; what do you think is the reason?

Glasgow is Scotland’s largest city and has a great electronic music scene. Clubs like the Sub Club and The Arches have amazing house and techno nights. Also we have new artists like the Revenge, Gary Beck, Sei A and more established acts like Slam, DJ Q, Stevie Sole’s Tronicsole/Sole Music labels etc. So there’s a great vibe and it’s definitely a 4/4 city: house and techno really rule the scene here. For example, Steve Bug said the Sub Club is one of his favourite clubs in the world, and I’m sure he knows what he is talking about!

Your recent tracks are warm with deep and tech edges. Could you tell me the key to your sound? What gear do you use? Do you have any rules when you produce tracks?

I use Logic and Ableton together to make my tracks. I use a lot of samples and pitch these instead of synths as I can achieve a warmer sound this way. I also use a lot of outboard with a summing mixer and Oberheim Matrix and old samplers by Akai. I like to buy synths on eBay and use them for a few tracks then sell them again, it keeps things fresh. 

I buy a lot of old vinyl for sampling drum hits. I think this is the best way as when you sample from vinyl, these sounds have a warmer tone and you get the dirty sound from the vinyl, it makes it much more pleasing to me than a horrible clean kick drum from a sample CD. Plus with everyone using the same equipment these days and buying the same sample CDs, it’s important to source your sounds from different and unique places.

What is the idea behind your new track “Destination” on Apt. International? Do you have any stories behind it?

Well, I wasn’t aware that was the name of a magazine in Japan, but it’s a nice coincidence! When you guys asked me for the EP, I tried to capture the feeling of going to Japan. So that’s why I called it “Destination"—also there is a lot of movement in the track, melodically, so it had a kind of “traveling” feeling to it. When I get on the plane to go to Japan, I’m always really excited, so I tried to recreate that feeling in the music. Also when you fly to Japan from Europe you go way north over Russia and near the Arctic circle and if you fly at the right time you see some of the most amazing views, so that was the feeling I was trying to go for.

Which artists are you paying attention to now, and whom should we be checking out?

I really love James Blake, he has an album upcoming on R&S and his music is mind-bending! I like Skudge too, nice rolling techno. There’s a lot of cool music coming out, but I always love discovering the older dance music from the late ‘80s, early/mid ‘90s. To me that is the best sound, especially the French deep-house producers from this era. I love Soundcloud as you find a lot of old DJ mixes. Recently I found one from DJ Deep from 1994 which I really loved. For the next Tokyo House Underground, you should hook up with Shur-I-Kan, he’s the man who can!

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