For the fourth instalment of the Label Focus feature, we are looking at Jahtari from Leipzig – purveyor of the best dub sounds this side of anywhere.
I was introduced to the label via my Independent Music Podcast co-host Gareth Main who in turn got onto it via a recommendation from Norman Records a couple of years ago and from there we were hooked. Buying all the releases, DJin them out and trying to catch the acts whenever we could.
I got together with Jan aka Disrupt label boss & beatmaker to find out more…
So Jan, very nice to hear from you. I’v been a massive fan of the label for a long time and it’s quite excited to say “hi”!
Happy to hear, man!
So tell us a bit about Jahtari, the world’s premier dub label coming out from Leipzig in Germany sounds a bit unlikely but yet here we are! How did the label start?
We originally come from Detroit and Berlin techno in the 90s and were a lot in Berlin back then – it’s not too far from Leipzig. We always got our vinyls at the Hardwax record store there, run by the Basic Channel guys who later released as Rhythm & Sound and also re-repressed the amazing Wackies catalogue. Essentially those records got us hooked to Reggae and Dub, which, apart from the occasional Bob Marley song on the radio, we had no idea about it.
We grew up in East Germany, which was behind the wall in the Eastern block back then, so there was no Reggae culture at all. Techno has a long underground history, there were many parties in abandoned factories and police didn’t care much about it, just like in Berlin in the 90s. But Dub and Techno pretty much work in the same way – hypnotic, layering soundscapes – it’s psychedelic loop music rather than written songs, so we got hooked quite fast. At some point we wanted to make some Reggae and Dub ourselves too, but without a band and no money the only thing to do was to use a cheap laptop, which turned out to be quite interesting. With a few tunes ready it was hard to find a label to send it to, since there weren’t any labels for that kind of music around at all, so we just did it ourselves as a netlabel in 2004. That worked so well that in 2008 we started to make vinyls. Luckily there’s a great vinyl pressing plant right here in Leipzig, so that was relatively easy too!
Am I right in saying the beats for the label are mainly made by yourself & Maffi from Denmark? How did you end up working with them?
It’s mostly me and Rootah – we run Jahtari together. I’m a bit faster with working on tunes and finishing them, and Rootah is more of a perfectionist. But he always tells me when it sounds shit or a riddim doesn’t work, which is crucial to release only the very best tunes, not the just OK ones. There are also other producers like Tapes, John Frum, Monkey Marc or Black Chow aka. The Bug, who send in finished tracks. But of course Maffi plays a big role – there’s no one better for the 80s digital tracks. Usually they bang out the killer riddims and I’m doing some arranging and dubbing on them later on – we send them back and forth. It’s a really cool way of working together. We know them from MySpace back then, but have met a lot of times in Copenhagen or Leipzig now, they’re a total riddim factory.
I guess that your a big fan of early computer music listening to the tracks. Are you a gamer at heart or just a bit fan of the music? On my label I released the Sid Chip Sounds: Music of the Commodore 64 compilation but for me it’s much more about the music than the games!
Yes, I was a teenager in the early 90s which was a very interesting time for computer games, and obviously THE cool thing to do when you’re in that age. Basically a lot of music we listened to back then didn’t come from the radio but from the computer when we were playing, but I didn’t realize until much later how much of an impact that actually had. For instance, the first Reggae I’ve ever heard from a computer was the soundtrack of the amazing Monkey Island adventure games, by Michael Z. Land, 1990/91 – all epic dub tunes at heart. He’s just one of many forgotten pioneers. So when we started making Reggae with a computer those were there obvious sounds to use: sounds from a computer.
What other labels do you consider kindred spirits / admire?
First of all Mungo’s Hifi from Glasgow were crucial: what they release, the way they run it 100% independent – we basically learned it all from them. Heroes. Then as we mentioned there’s Rhythm & Sound from Berlin, but they stopped years ago. Standhigh are amazing and very special, great to see how well that goes. Then there’s the Dubkasm lads from Bristol / UK. And also linking up with Realityshock from Reading can’t be appreciated highly enough – there’s an unbelievable amount of vocal talent in this small place: Solo Banton, Mikey Murka, Speng Bond, Deadly Hunta and many more. Kris Kemist there helped us a lot – that’s like a family now.
Any new MC’s that have got you very excited recently?
We’re doing a lot with Speng Bond now, he was around the UK sound systems for ages, late 70s and through the whole 80s – a true veteran with 200% vibes. Like us he’s not on the total serious side – Reggae can be too serious sometimes – very funny and tongue in cheek, but still with a raw and deep street wisdom to it. He’s totally killing it live, we’re absolutely loving it.
What’s on the horizon for Jahtari? Any chance of getting the whole Jahtari crew to London?
We did a lot of vocal records in the last years so it’s time for more Dub again – we actually quite missed it. I got a bit sick of the computer too – you’re always more like a technician than an actual musician with it. So I’ve built a proper studio now with heaps of machines – many of them DIY – which all go through a tapedeck and are played live. We also jam a lot, etc – so it’s much more fun doing it this way. Tapes has got a new EP coming soon, he moved from London to Leipzig this summer, and since he’s a wicked synth player he pops round a lot now and a heap of amazing live dubs is already piling up. We’re doing this on gigs now as well: he’s playing bass and skanks live on old analogue synths while I run drums and dub it up, killer. Hopefully in UK soon too.
We’re also just finishing a kinda Dub-Hiphop EP with Monkey Marc, a brilliant producer from Australia. Basically picking it up where Roots Manuva’s “Dub Come Save Me” left it hanging.
Thanks a lot for taking the time to talk to us!
Anthony Chalmers is a freelance music booker & runs independent record label Robot Elephant Records
