With a penchant for DJ tech that verges on fetish, James Zabiela is now passing his pioneering knowledge onto an electric selection of fresh new talent with
his new label... Words: DAVID SULLIVAN
ames Zabiela is a visionary and icon to many. He’s the foundation of almost every digital DJ’s performance, whether they know it or not. Helping to craft some of the most important DJ technology as the Pioneer Product Test Advisor, he casts
his nerdy knowledge into tangible product.
He first earned this title after developing a mind- bogglingly hi-tech DJing style that won him Muzik Magazine’s coveted Bedroom Bedlam award back in 2001, before he was pushed to the forefront as a protege of Sasha’s. Today, his DJ set-up is next level — where standard CDJ performances are layered with lashings of loops, Kaoss pad synths, an iPad and the explorative indulgence of Ableton. And that’s just for starters. His DJ sets fall more into that of live performance than the standard mix and blend.
While the Zabiela sets of the early noughties provided a rich array of house and breakbeat which he combined in typically eclectic style, he’s always been an open- minded DJ. In recent years he’s been a passionate advocate of bass music, though his own music hinted at a love of low-end frequencies as early as 2005 (the deep echoes of ‘Skanksuary’). James has now become a first-stop gateway to breaking future-thinking bass-injected talent on his newly developed label Born Electric.
“I had a track of my own to put out (the dreamy future bass mesmeriser ‘The Healing’) and I didn’t want to give it to anyone else,” James tells DJ Mag. “It took me a while to finish and I started to become a bit protective over it. I wanted control over how it looked as well as sounded, so I wanted to get it out in the right way.”
HEROES AND HOTSHOTS The right way was through his new imprint, developed
with the intention of pushing his favourite artists, as well as new hotshots, to the fore — “to get my heroes to remix my tracks and then also to sign up my peers,” he says.
It’s a platform for some of electronic music’s most treasured names. “I got Hot Chip, Midland and Clubroot, three idols of mine [to remix ‘The Healing’],” he continues, fluffing his chest feathers. “For them to remix my own track is a big thing.” The remixes of ‘The Healing’ highlighted by James are a varied showcase of what lies at the heart of Born Electric — from the electro essence of Midland’s version to the anthemic trance bass of Clubroot’s lick, and Hot Chip’s stadia half-stepper. “I think they were halfway through the mix, and then