Music : Electro House, Tech House, Electro, Breaks, Minimal Techno and Funky Techno
SLIDE's 13TH BIRTHDAY
At The Carling Academy Oxford
Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1UE
Friday 23 November
11pm-4am
£10 advance
Lee Mortimer (aka The Sawtooth Sucka). Matt Braddock. Rich Smith
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS FROM WEGOTTICKETS
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS FROM TICKETWEB
Or purchase from the Academy Box Office without booking fee, Section 9 & HMV
The brilliant James Zabiela returns to Slide to help celebrate our 13th year in existence!
Check him out at the Zodiac last year when he played - CLICK HERE
Space, the final frontier. As the smartest club in Ibiza opens its doors to welcome in their shiny new resident, James Zabiela just smiles and blinks a little. See, the ride here has been kinda fast. And while its been a relatively bump-free trip to acceptance and ubiquity, it's still blinkin' quick. Two years ago, James Zabiela popped his Balearic cherry by warming up for Sasha at the place the island calls Inside At Space. Wowing the crowd - and We Love boss Darren Hughes - with two hours of snappy, synth-fixated, breakbeat action - it was a defining moment in his DJ career. Two years later, he's now the club's new bi-weekly resident. It's official. Now "that's" what I call progression.
Knowing what a great track should sound like - and the place it can be taken by warping and twisting it - is James Zabiela's forte. Layering different sounds with the aid of two Pioneer CDJ1000s, a Pioneer DJM800 a trusty Technics 1210 and with Ableton Live on his laptop, his hands and ears don't let up for a second, leaving any punters feet a-moving and mouth a-gap. And his demands for such kit wherever he spins is a reminder that he's at the forefront of DJs pushing things forward in 2007. James's style is trippy, bleepy and deeply - nay, downright - groovy. Oh, and watch out for a few gnarly basslines along the way. Those nasty, dirty sounds are a part of Jay-Z's signature sound now. Scratches, loops, fluttering chord changes and are all par for the course in a Zabiela set. No wonder childhood idols Depeche Mode remain his heroes - like fellow tech-house don Mathew Bushwacka!, they all understand that the best electronic music moves both heart and feet. And if the magic's there, the spirit will fly as well. And boy does this boy soar"Entertainment and education are the key," nods James sagely. "It's all about finding the balance. People have paid good money to have a party but you still need a balance." Which is why his FX unit is so crucial to his performance. "Anyone can mix two records to a degree," he grins, while still admitting to the odd bout of nervousness during radio interviews, if not behind the decks. "But I'm a hundred times more confident than I used to be. DJing has definitely helped my confidence as a person." Watching him play, its easy to forget that making things look easy takes time to perfect. But then he's crossed a few bridges - and a few national boundaries - along the way. "I haven't worked it all out yet," he adds. "But I do wish I could grow an extra arm sometimes!" (Fact One: talking of three deck wizards, on a recent hometown gig in Southampton, a certain Carl Cox came down to pay some respect, if not the door tab. High praise indeed...)
James' career so far has been stratospheric to say the least. After winning Muzik Magazine's Bedroom Bedlam competition with a string of well-placed mix tapes in 2000, he went on to win the award for Best Bedroom Bedlam DJ at The Muzik Awards one year later. Swiftly snapped up by Sasha's Excession agency a few weeks later, he spent the next year taking on Eastern Europe, Australia, South America and the US of A ("more fanatical than anywhere else in the world") while still finding time to record well-received CDs for Groovetech, Hooj and unleash a string of fine remixes along the way.
Further compilations followed, including 'Alive' and 'Utilities' on Renaissance, and his production work continued to grow and grow, with singles including 'Robophobia', 'Weird Science' and most recently, 'Human', out last month.
James joined forces last year with Nic Fanciulli to form One+One. This involved marathon 4 to 6 hour sets where James and Nic would use their combined talents to rock the dancefloor. A world tour followed, taking in dates in the Far East, Australia and the US. Click here to purchase the One+One Compilation, out on Ministry Of Sound.
More recently, James was voted 'BEST BRITISH DJ' at the Best of British Awards, put together by DJ Magazine.
Still only 28, still pushing the envelope and still learning to cope with a real-life fanbase and life on the other side of the record counter, its unlikely that James Zabiela will be taking a breather anytime soon.