Emmerald: When DJing, do you notice people in different countries reacting to your sets differently?
Jazzanova: Yes, in some ways, definitely. It's a global thing what we do, so there are people all around who play our stuff and we play their stuff. So when we DJ, we get the same vibe wherever we go. But it also depends on the people who are promoting the night and on people who are playing the music in their home towns. If we are not in our kind of network of people playing our music, for example, if there is a promoter who read about Jazzanova and doesn't know anything about us but thinks OK, it's a name we'll have them come play, then it can be sometimes really strange if they expect something totally different. For example, they see a picture of the six of us but then there's just one of us coming and DJing, then they are expecting, for example, a live band. Sometimes the music people expect is different than what we play.
We may have a crowd which is not that soulful, which is more rock-y. Then we try to adapt to it, I mean, if it's possible. But sometimes we get a crowd which is not familiar with the Jazzanova music, but they still really enjoy what we play. Like when we played in South Africa. We had really good time there. So I would say generally the difference in countries is there, but not within our network.
Emmerald: You've got a new compilation album, "Mixing", which is a Jazzanova mix CD, and it seems like you all are getting back to your DJing roots. Why did you decide to do a mix CD instead of launching back into another full-length album?
Jazzanova: Before "Mixing", we had a remix compilation, we had an album and we had a remix album, like people who remixed our tracks. And in this whole circle what was missing was mix compilation. So it's like a finish to the full circle. That's what we wanted, after the remixing we always wanted to have a mix compilation.
From the start of the project we were searching for tracks which represent us as DJs and also our producers as well, what they like, what they choose. Of course, we looked mainly at what we play and tracks that never leave our box like the Jill Scott track or the Bahamadia track for example. The producers had a strong part in it because of the Jazzanova track, "Let Your Heart Be Free." We already had in mind what we wanted to feature on the compilation. So we asked a couple of remixers like Atjazz and Ame if they were able to do a special kind of track. We described what we wanted and we were asked people to write tracks for the compilation. Georg Levin, for example, we asked him to write a track for the end of the compilation because he's from our label and it's a perfect finish. For a year at the end of our sets we played a Georg Levin tune and that's why we wanted to end the CD with that. Then when it came to the mix-down we put all the tracks into our system and we mixed it together in ProTools because we wanted to be perfect, a perfect sound. This was Axel's big part. He did a lot to put everything together and make it sound fresh and good.
