jek f is of the old school: he is one of few contemporary artists who’s primarily made a name for himself through djing, rather than producing. i like that. and you should like that, because it often means such a person is a better dj as a result.
catch the parisian in action at pbar, fabric or rex club and you’re unlikely to challenge that. more recent times have seen him put his d-floor know how to good use with ubiquitous results, whilst his revered and taste-making deep house label, silver network, continues to go about documenting the best of the genre in style. the man plays ketoloco at the light bar, london on sunday april 24th alongside recent ra podcaster maceo plex and cocoon’s gav herlihy but, ahead of that gig, speaks to teshno about politics, the essence of house music and about that hit, ‘in my system’ from summer 2010…
salut… ca va? what’s been keeping you busy and excited recently?
hello hello yes, i’m fine, very busy with production and bookings nowadays, i won’t complain …
you founded what’s become a classic deep house label – what do you make of the resurgence of such sounds into the popular conscious? and in fact, what are your thoughts on trends in general? how hard is it to ignore them as a producer/label head?
i founded my label silver network back in 1999 with my brother (30 releases so far). back in the day you could only play vinyls in clubs… i’ve been a dj since 1992 and i’ve always played and released house music, so trends don’t matter that much to me… still, house music is to me a general term in which you can have differences, from the old school garage sounds from frankie knuckles, tony humphries or masters at work and go all the way to this ‘futuristic’ house that guys like ame, isolee or maceo plex are doing nowadays… in a way it’s all about big basslines, being groovy and sexy and not too fast. that’s what stays, the rest on top of it makes the difference… this is house music to me… i don’t think there’s a ‘resurgence’ or ‘come back’ of deep house, to me it’s always been there and always will be, it’s the basis of electronic dance music, it all goes from there anyway…
what scene did you grow up around? your sound is a long way from the french fuzz of daft punk, for example… were you listening to imported electronic music in the early days or was it a local scene that got you excited?
i was born and raised in the suburbs of paris so i’ve been surrounded by all types of ‘black’ music: reggae, funk, disco, hip hop and i also have a classical music and jazz background from my father who’s a big connaisseur and collector so i was lucky to listen to music nearly all the time … i don’t think that my sound is a long way from daft punk, i’ve known them from their beginning, we all had radio shows on radio fg in paris in the 90s, they come from the same music background that was played a lot at this time also by djs like laurent garnier, dj deep or erik rug, all the us heroes were playing one after the other at rex club, we were blessed to have chez damier, ron trent or cajmere and then after derrick carter and all those amazing us artists and djs who always had a great welcome from the parisian scene, i think they influenced everybody here ‘cos we all had that ‘black’ music influence that goes naturally to early us house music …
and what shape is the french scene in now? compare to other european cities it seems quite small… why is that do you think? especially as french guys like yourself, d’julz, dan ghenacia are so well received abroad…
it’s true that the french scene has been much better back in the day, especially the 90s and early 00s when most of the djs were (nearly) fighting to play in paris… i think that this “electro – minimal” trend, that i’ve never been into, killed the scene, people were not so happy in clubs anymore, and the hype went naturally to germany for example…. also we have a problem with clubs and venues which are always the same, nothing really new happened in 20 years… the authorities have never been helpful with us and never granted licenses for new places… still, i notice that paris is coming back recently. after a couple of years of sleep you can see nice parties and party people again, a lot of great djs are playing again every weekend in paris and the crowd is back, a new crowd; new people who are maybe coming back because of this ‘resurgence’ of the deeper and happier sounds that you were talking about… i’d be quite confident for the future of france if we can get rid of this stupid sarkozy and all this terrible conservative and racist mentality that he’s giving us every day on the news… this is another problem but i think there’s a link between politics and the nightlife… maybe we can talk about this longer another day…
you’re probably sick of talking about it but how did you hook up with chez for the gathering? did you know you were onto a hit with ‘in my system?’
it was a great moment to see chez damier again after the few years that he ‘disappeared’ from the scene for his other projects. he’s an old friend of mine and he used to live in paris for a few months in the 90′s, so i invited him to paris again and introduced him to chris carrier, we all went to chris’ studio for a jam and then did this ‘in my system’ project altogether… though i’m really happy and proud of this project, it was not aimed at being such a hit, we never did these tracks in that state of mind, and you can feel this feeling in chez’s super nice and sweet vocals… the chance meeting on a plane with other old mates ricardo villalobos and zip – who hammered my remix afterwards – also helped made it big…
will there be more music under that moniker/ as part of that team do you think?
chez is coming back to paris to play the silver newtork label night at showcase on saturday 23rd of april (with a live show from spirit catcher btw) so we’ll see what happens then…
you seem to prefer collabs to date, are you closer to any solo work or…? is there anything in particular holding you back or…?
i like to work with somebody in a studio i like to talk and exchange ideas, team work is cool… now i work a lot with my mate gwen maze who is a great producer and we’ve know each other for a very long time but never really did music together so it’s always good fun to work on a track together… still, i just finished (on my own) a deep sol remix for trickski on suol berlin… to be released soon.
do you feel pressure to play the tune in your sets now? how do you find a balance between giving people what they want and trying to educate them to new stuff? is that something you ever think about?
not really, of course i try to adapt my set to the crowd i have in front of me, it’s one of the main things of being a dj, but i never play a record i don’t like just to please the crowd… i try to improve all the time, not being stuck in the same set every party. i listen to a lot of promos and new music from different genres that i receive from different parts of the world and try to do my best when i am at the desks…
what is the general aim with your label – what sort of music do you look to release? are there any unifying themes to all silver network records do you think?
not sure about this, you have the answer maybe, i just release the music i like and from artists and producers that i respect a lot that i’m lucky to meet on my way…
are things like artwork and medium etc important to the overall product you put out on silver network or are you just concerned with the sounds?
of course it is to me very important, this is why i worked since the beginning with the same artist/designer for all label artwork and flyers that concern silver network. his name is senz and he now lives in new york check www.senzart.com… i really like his style…
am i right in thinking you enjoy playing slow? what is it about those speeds that excite you?
the slowest, the grooviest, the sexiest, no ?? it’s all about bass…
what should people expect from your performance at ketoloco this easter sunday? how much do you prepare for each set you play?
i am very looking forward to this gig, i have always had great parties in london and it’s a great line up that day… very excited to play ketoloco in the afternoon and also below at night in birmingham… both parties have a great line up… super easter sunday in england!!
what else you got coming up in 2011?
a lot more gigs in england and other countries, which is always great, and a few releases on silver network and some great labels… the next silver network release is by my parisian old mate valentin featuring a cool vocal by the morvans (ex milli vanilli) with remixes by abstract soul, hot lunch (sasse & ewan pearson), darius aleksander… gwen and i also did a few remixes recently for 2020 vision, rebirth and infradig in mexico… we also did a track that will be released on cecille… and other cool projects that we are working on right now… more news asap
and what do you like to do outside of music? who are you aside from a dj?
i am a father i love my wife and kids … its takes a lot of (good) time also …
finally, if you were to translate it, what would be the french for ‘deep house’? [please be ‘maison profonde’ just because it's funny]
ahaa we’d never translate this, we just say ze deep house in english and in french la deep house… ok ? 
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