Virginmega.com / March 2002
www.virginmega.com
from the feature "Deepsky: Stargazing Beyond Techno and Trance"

Even if you can't name the tracks, you'll know Deepsky's music when you hear it. In the beginning there were two friends who lived in New Mexico grooving off the vibes that make up the illustrious desert-mountain terrain that arguably is one of the more spiritual places in America. A DJ named John Digweed heard their fashionable “Stargazer” track and featured it on one of his best-ever mix album Global Underground: Sydney. Stalwart UK DJ Nick Warren really warmed up to Deepsky by featuring their “Tempest” track on Global Underground: Live In Prague, and “In My Mind” on Cream: Live 2. Last year, Dave Ralph took a newer track, “Until the End of the World,” and used it on his memorable Naturalized mix album.

Today, J. Scott Giaquinta and Jason Blum turn up the BPMs in Los Angeles, which is where they completed their very own full-length album, In Silico (Kinetic). The album exposes the many faces of Deepsky from the jazz inflected and mesmerizing opener “View From a Staircase” (a song written to Giaquinta's current girlfriend) to the intricate Underworld sounding “Metro” (where Blum impressively plays live bass) and the drum ‘n' bass-meets-‘80s-synth track “Mansion World.” There's also the hard-hitting dance floor sensation “Atia,” while punk princess Saffron (formerly of Republica) adds vocals and lyrics to the spirited “Smile.” In Deepsky's music, you can tell that Giaquinta and Blum grew up loving ‘80s music a la Depeche Mode and New Order, and that they hold onto a bit of the spirituality from their homeland. But more importantly they transcend their experiences into a soundtrack for the future.

Deepsky's potential is best captured on In Silico's first progressive vinyl single, an unshakable tech-trance remix of “Jareth's Church,” which quickly hit the #1 position on the esteemed Balance and Massive charts. So again Digweed and other world-class DJs were spreading Deepsky's intelligent and hypnotic resonance around the world. If you've ever seen the pair perform an all original material live set, you know few match their intensity and raw essence, including Blum's percussive efforts onstage.

Here we take a peak at what goes on behind the scene for Deepsky:

So let's see what's in your studio as we look around?

Blum: Well, the way we have it set up is that everything on one side is all mini synthesizers and a couple effects. On the other side is all our outboard effects and our input pad. So things from over here (on the left) go in here (on the right) and that all plugs into the computer.

Then you have bongos, a live bass, a mic stand, sofas, dance music magazines with Deepsky articles featured, a boom box … and what's this?

Giaquinta: Sound insulation foam. If you go into the front room and clap your hands, it resonates. It doesn't do that in here. So you don't get reflections off the back wall, you're actually only hearing what comes out of the speakers.

So Jason you play drums and bass and Scott you play keyboards, but you DJ a little too, but not in Deepsky sets, right? How do your sets differ from a Deepsky live performance?

Giaquinta: Because we're usually a headlining act, Deepsky's live sets have always been engineered for the duration of one hour where we try to pack as much in to it as we can. So we try to go up there and rock it from beginning to end, although we have now started to build our sets a little slower (and longer) than we used to. In DJ sets you have more time to play with, so you can start with something more mellow and work your way up with more energy. It's sort of the same music, especially now that the album is out and we're definitely writing more music than I would play in a set, which is not how it used to be.

What do you think sets Deepsky apart, besides the fact that you produce all original tracks instead of mixing someone else's like most top DJs do?

Blum: What we are going for is to be a good electronic act, not just be a trance act or a breakbeat act or a drum ‘n' bass act. When you think of Underworld you can't classify them, they are a great electronic band. Not to say we want to be like Underworld, but we want to be a great electronic band.

Underworld is equally as good recorded as they are live … they are so respected on every level.

Blum: You can say the same thing about Orbital. They've been around for ages. They've written classic tracks that hold up today and they still play live. What would you say Orbital does? Techno, right? But it's not like techno.

I think the best track they did last year was “Illusion” using a live David Gray vocal.

Blum: How old are those guys now?

Giaquinta: Late ‘30s.

Blum: They've been doing it since before I even knew this was going on. And I can only hope that we'll be doing it ten years down the road.

Well Karl and Rick (Underworld) are in their 40s. Age only gives you the opportunity to evolve, learn from your mistakes and take it to the highest level possible, and that's what they've done.

Blum: They've been doing it since the early ‘80s and that was good for them because they know what it's like to be a band and not just DJs. They've come through all the ‘80s music and the whole New Beat era and then into techno.

Speaking of Orbital and live vocals, what was it like to work with Saffron? Did you find the lyrics that she wrote matched the vibe of the track? The music was already composed right?

Giaquinta: Yeah. They matched the vibe of the song, I don't know if you should print this, but the vibe of the song doesn't necessarily match the whole rest of the album.

Blum: It doesn't.

Giaquinta: It's a little aggro.

Blum: It matches the rest of the album in no way, but we were trying to do something different and we did it. People may like it or they may hate it. It doesn't matter. We'd never done a real live vocal track and when we heard it was going to be Saffron doing the vocals, we knew it wasn't going to be a little thing.

Giaquinta: We didn't want it to be pretty trance track. That's been done so many times before that we don't even want to go down that road. When we heard it was Saffron, we tailored the song a little more.

Blum: We really like the track, it's just different than the rest of the album. We try to do more than just have a bunch of tracks that sound similar, but that may turn some people off. It seems to be what a lot of popular dance music is these days. We've always tried to keep a nice chord structure in Deepsky's music. If music is good it's good. Period. Everything has its place. But Scott and I agree that in the current crop of progressive DJs that we hear cycle through the clubs, they put the night right here (raises hand midway) and it stays there the whole time. Nothing happens. All their records sound the same.

That hasn't been my experience at all. What about Steve Lawler, Lee Burridge, Deep Dish, even John Digweed's latest sets?

Blum: Digweed plays progressive house well and no one else does it as good as him. I'm not saying that I haven't heard great progressive house, because I have and I like it, but there is a vast crop of new DJs, you could go through this magazine (holds up a Mixer) and I bet you couldn't identify half of the DJs that have CDs out now. Everyone wants to be a DJ. If you've got a CD out and an ad in popular magazines, you'll get booked. But the problem is you don't have to be good. You just have to have a CD out, or maybe have written a record and then you get a shot at DJing. That doesn't make you a good DJ. It can be, but I think it's getting almost too easy to be a DJ these days …

- Kim Taylor