Five For The Funk (and one in the trunk): Audiojack

Photo: Audiojack

Leeds based production outfit Audiojack have come a long way since their chance encounter in Ibiza over a decade ago.

Their solid, uncompromising house and techno sound has shone through both in their productions and through their label Gruuv, which is in the business of nurturing fresh new talent whilst also housing output from some of the more established artists in the field like Jimmy Edgar, A1 Bassline, Mr. G and John Tejada.

Their fun filled, energetic sets have been in demand worldwide, having hit clubs like Rex, Ego, Sankeys, Electric Pickle and Watergate to name just a few.

Ahead of their arrival at London's Bankside Vaults on June 19th, we caught up with Audiojack's Rich and Jamie to find out five of their musical highlights from their time running Gruuv. The duo decided to throw one extra track in there too for good measure - well, three choices each seemed only fair. Check their selections below.

Spirit Catcher 'Superimposed'

Jamie: Spirit Catcher have been musical inspirations for us since before we began Audiojack over 10 years ago, their music was a benchmark of what could be achieved, so to receive a demo from them was nothing short of an honour.

Due to various obstacles it took us a year to finally release the completed EP and during that time we barely missed playing it in a set. We love all of Spirit Catcher's music but for me this is their piece de resistance.        

David Pher 'Footsteps' 

Rich: Sometimes you can be good at A&R and sometimes you just get lucky. This was the latter. We didn’t realise the potential of this track - in fact it was the C side on the EP. Enter Damian Lazarus with his first Beatport chart in two years, 'Footsteps' at number four.

This was the tipping point that turned average sales into one of the big club tracks of last summer. We’re not primarily focused on sales and chart places, but it’s interesting to see how just one DJ can have such a big influence. Then again, it’s maybe not so surprising when that one DJ is Damian Lazarus. 

Marc Romboy 'Set Me Free' (A1 Bassline Nostalgia remix)

Jamie: When Marc came to us with some tracks for the label it gave us a real sense of achievement that one of our piers would want to release music on the label that we'd built from the ground up three years prior.

We looked to previous Gruuv artist Christian Piers aka A1 Bassline for the remix and he turned in a timeless piece of music that as such, never seems to feel old or tired in our sets and keeps coming around again two years on and no doubt will continue to.

Deepgroove & Thieve 'Do You' (Martin Dawson Remix) 

Rich: Martin Dawson was an awesome man and we were devastated when he passed a few years ago. He was one of the reasons we started making music, a big inspiration and a true gent.

We are thankful we got the chance to feature him on the label with this remix of Deepgroove and a man you probably won’t know under the guise Thieve, but you likely will under his newer and current pseudonym, Eats Everything.   

Deep Future 'You Need It' (Detroit Swindle's 'Never Enough' interpretation) 

Jamie: It's a tough task to try and break a new act and only a handful of Gruuv signings have been unknown to us, and Deep Future, from Ireland was one of them. In these cases we always try and commission remixes to give the EP some names people know to raise the profile of the EP, but often these artists won't take a chance on remixing someone new.

Luckily we managed to interest a couple of up and coming Dutch lads whose name would later become a staple in European house, Detroit Swindle. It's an early slice of the sound that made their name and still sounds great now. 

Audiojack 'Plastic Dreams'

Rich: We remade Jaydee's classic using original parts. We couldn’t replicate the organ sound well enough though, and almost gave up, until Jaydee appeared like a knight in shining armour and offered to sample it and send over.

It was important for us to have his blessing with this cover as we wanted to honour his timeless classic. We weren’t actually going to release it at all, but after sending a copy to Seth Troxler who started playing it a lot we were getting messages daily so figured we had to put it out, even if just to stop all the messages, haha!

Catch Audiojack in action at Bankside Vaults on June 19th.

Tickets are no longer available for this event