Jvst Say Yes sprang out of nowhere last week with a bunch of sexy promo images and Ill Behaviour, a track that amassed over 50,000 Soundcloud plays in just two days. He’s since followed it up with two equally scorching bass house burners Played You and All I Need
Coming through Disciple, we had a feeling we already knew him.
Turns out we did. You guys blatantly do too. But we’re not allowed to say who it is yet. Here’s what he has to say, why he’s doing what he’s doing and why we should all pay attention to what he describes as the bass house movement.
I really want to tell people who you are… Just say yes!
Ha… Just say no on that one. Just for a while. Let’s just say I’ve been involved in dubstep for a long time and people will find out who I am in good time. But to be honest I just want the music to be the main focus at the moment.
That’s fair enough. So what inspired this new project?
I’d been hearing lots of really interesting bass house from Habstrakt and Ephwurd and got inspired… I was already making house music under another name. Like UK-style deep house and garage. That sound doesn’t work in America and everyone is making it. It felt the like the new dubstep, it was over saturated. So I started exploring bass house. It’s picking up over here in a major way. I love how bass house transcends different scenes; it bridges the gap between so many different genres…
I instantly thought of the fidget sound from about seven years ago. Herve, Sinden, Fake Blood…
I’ve been paying attention to electronic music for the last 16 years. Everything I’ve heard along that path is in my music, either by design or subliminally. So I’m sure you’re right. It wasn’t at the forefront of my mind, though; I’m just inspired by the energy these types of tracks are getting over here. UK is very trend-based and things move quicker. In America things stick for a lot longer. Hip-hop is a classic example. EDM now, too. That’s why so many dubstep producers have moved to America. The dubstep scene has since deceased in the UK.
Sad… Don’t you think the tide will turn again?
No. People have been telling me breaks are coming back for the next 10 years and they haven’t. I don’t think dubstep, as it was, will ever be back in the way it was. The riddim movement is a great development from dubstep but the old ‘real’ dubstep sounds seem to too low energy from what the scene expects from bass music now. People still want that extreme sound but in a different way. They don’t call it partying over here, they call it raging. Are you coming out to rage tonight? That’s the culture that surrounds us here. The energy dictates how things move.
Do you honestly think things will get more and more extreme? Things have to go round in cycles…
“Maybe, but I can’t see people stopping the raging quite yet. A lot of the bass music scene in the US came from heavy metal and hip-hop fans so hard, high energy sound is a big part of the music culture here.”
Okay… So let’s address the ill behaviour sample. You and Oliver Heldens have both gone there. Pretty much in the same week.
Yeah. I’m not going to get a play on the Heldeep podcast any time soon am I?
Doubt it. Not that track anyway…
It doesn’t go in my favour. But it’s a banging sample and everyone recognises it. The tune goes down so well and was a lot of fun to play. It’s getting a lot of support within our little bass house scene.
Give us an example of the people in this little scene then…
Habstrakt, Joyryde, Ephwurd and a few more people. We’re all sending each other tracks and vibing off each other. For the first time in a long time it feels like we’re a little creative community again, which I haven’t felt like for a long time. Like dubstep maybe four or so years ago when everyone was cooking up so many exciting tracks day after day; Doctor P, Trolley Snatcha, Funtcase… These days there are so many dubstep tunes coming out constantly, and so many derivative demos to sift through that it just doesn’t have that feeling of being new and exciting that it used to have, which makes this new emerging movement so exciting to be involved in.
Exciting… Almost like you’re going back to your roots?
Yes. In a way. This is what I love about making music and why I started doing it in the first place. I know we’re hardly reinventing the wheel here but it is different to what else is going on and there’s great support for the tracks we’re doing. It’s an exciting time for this new bass house scene.
Hungry for more bass house? Ephwurd’s identity has been revealed this week too…
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