people aren’t saying, ‘We’re sick of like the odd one out. Back when I
Josh Wink’ but they’re not like, ‘Where started out I was playing with a lot of
did he go?’ either.” the New York house bigwigs like Danny
Tenaglia and Roger Sanchez through
my association with Nervous, but to
Chameleon Quality
them I was always ‘the techno guy’.
For whilst nothing he’s released has And because I had records out on R&S
achieved the same level of ubiquity as and Kickin’ I knew a lot of the Detroit
‘Higher State Of Consciousness’ since, techno guys as well, but I was always
there’s also barely been a year when a little bit too housey for them. So I
another one of Josh’s productions was always in this weird grey area and
hasn’t been a staple in the sets of that’s happened with my music as well.
clubland’s biggest jocks. But, fortunately, that means it crosses
There was the acidic euphoria of a lot of boundaries.”
2002’s ‘Superfreq’ for one, not to
mention his rework of L’il Louis’
‘French Kiss’ that was 2000’s ‘How’s
Slippery
Your Evening So Far?’, a track caned Which is something you can hear
by everybody from Erick Morillo to throughout ‘When A Banana Was Just A
Jeff Mills. Banana’, which, as befi ts the title, can
He’s also played his own role in be a slippery thing at times. Beginning
the recent wave of minimal as well, with the pulsing beats and swirling
releasing ‘Thick As Thieves’ on Steve melodies of ‘Airplane Electronique’ it
Bug’s Poker Flat imprint, whilst segues into new single ‘Counter Clock’,
acknowledging that some of his a track inspired by hearing Dixon’s sets
earlier stripped-down productions like of slo-mo techno and house, picking
1995’s ‘Don’t Laugh’ were formative up again with the epic quarter-hour
infl uences on the minimal style. deep house tune ‘Jus’ Right’ before
you’re submerged in the weightless
Yet if there’s been one defi ning breakdown of ‘Dolphin Smack’, one of
aspect of all his releases it hasn’t Josh’s favourite moments on the album
been a specifi c sound so much as a because “it’s just so out there”.
chameleon quality that again became Following on from that point the album
apparent last year with ‘Stay Out All ducks and weaves around both the
Night’. Ripping up that very minimal dancefl oor and its stranger fringes
blueprint he’d helped create, the with ‘Everybody To The Sun’ and
muscular bassline, Rhodes organ and ‘Hypno-Slave’, fi nishing on a fi nal rush-
old-school New York house fl avours inducing high with ‘Stay Out All Night.’
of ‘Stay Out All Night’ stood out like Out this month on Ovum, it’s a
an unwaxed bikini line amidst the genuinely rare example of a dance
identikit records that swamped the album that maintains your undivided
perma-tanned silicone-enhanced attention for the full 70 minutes. And
Miami Winter Music Conference, although Josh’s mind might have
where Josh had distributed a handful been thinking of times past when he
of copies to DJs such as Steve Bug, produced it, the last thing ‘When A
watching it snowball into one of the Banana Was Just A Banana’ sounds is
biggest and most talked about tracks outdated.
of the conference and later, with “I remember when the fi rst Walkmans
subsequent support from the likes of came out and you could only put one
Laurent Garnier, of the whole year. tape in there,” he explains. “I had
“It wasn’t really a conscious decision albums like Genesis or The Thompson
to go against the grain, so much Twins’ ‘Into The Gap’ and there was no
as me feeling a bit nostalgic and auto-reverse, so the only way to select
releasing something that refl ected the tracks was to fl ip it over. That
that,” Josh claims. meant you had to listen to the
“‘Stay Out All Night’ was just one of album all the way
those things that happened to come through,
out when there was a lull in music,
where it was all minimal or
watered down vocal house,
and I think that’s why “I’m still someone
people just snapped
it up. who’s prepared to love
“But I’ve
always
anything
felt
and give anything a go.”
028
www.djmag.com
DJ470.josh wink.indd 28 16/1/09 16:56:30
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