Amongst the spectrum of the divine underground rests an incredibly talented woman who won’t let her disease deter her from pursuing her passion.Laura Jones has led a life based on continuous music discovery and curation. Her devotion to the techno genre began in the early 2000s, after undergoing a ‘musical epiphany’ of sorts on a trip to Ibiza. Throughout the course of the past 16 years Jones has racked up a series of accomplishments that any DJ/producer would be proud of carrying under their belt. She launched onto our radar in 2011 with her sensational release, “Love In Me”, which garnered support from prolific names like Danny Daze and Luciano (and was remixed by none other than Maceo Plex).
In spite of being diagnosed with Stargardt’s disease in 2008 – a rare inherited condition that causes the light-sensitive cells in the retina to deteriorate – she continues to prevail with greatness. Having a knack of finding the silver lining, Jones used the diagnosis as inspiration behind the adoption of a new aesthetic: her signature orange sunglasses that she almost never goes without.
2016 was a big year for the techno starlet namely because of the launch of her very own vinyl label, Sensoramic. We had the chance to pick her brain on the intricacies of being a women in the techno scene, as well as the inspiration behind the creation of her label and her overall experiences as a producer.
TK: Where were you born and raised?
LJ: I was born in Kilton in Nottinghamshire and raised in first Penistone in Yorkshire and then on the Wirral near Liverpool.
TK: Can you tell us a little bit about your experience of being a woman in a scene that’s predominantly saturated with men? Do you ever feel like you have more to prove because of your gender?
LJ: No, I don’t feel I have to prove myself any more than anyone else. When I first started out there seemed to be a lot less women making and playing music than today but the numbers are still nowhere near to being equal. I don’t feel that sexism in the scene is very blatant. It’s more often than not found lurking under the surface in the innocuous comments and assumptions that people make. Comments on Facebook threads can often allude to these. Like when men add to a discussion of how a female DJ played by commenting on her being beautiful. What’s that got to do with how she played? Or the constant assumptions that a female producer must have had her tracks made for her by a ghost producer.
TK: How long have you been producing and what prompted you to try your hand at it?
LJ: I started learning to produce in the late 2000s and it was a natural progression from having my eyes opened to the scene by a trip to Ibiza in early 2000s. I was really inspired by watching artists like Tania Vulcano, Clive Henry and Dan Ghenacia at DC10 and the likes of Ivan Smagghe or Richie Hawtin playing Amnesia so as soon as I got home I took myself off to music college and started buying vinyl like my life depended on it. Learning to produce came a little while after but was again a natural progression helped by having a classical musical background as a child.
TK: Who are your musical muses? Are there any artists (techno or not) that you really admire?
LJ: How long have I got? One of the first major producers of underground electronic music to profoundly change how I think about dance music was Ricardo Villalobos. His Alcachofa album from 2003 was like nothing I’d ever heard before and set the bar very high for my expectation of where electronic music could go in the human imagination. Gemini is another artist who has probably greatly shaped my appreciation for left of field house. Current artists I love include people like Kamran Sadeghi who is releasing on my label Sensoramic, 100HZ, Leif, Oskar Offermann, Binh or Metamatics.
TK: Going off of that, which producers would you say have had the greatest influence in shaping your sound?
LJ: I’ve already mentioned Ricardo and Gemini above so I could probably better answer the question by naming some key labels such as Playhouse, the Frankfurt label home to a wide variety of pivotal artists like Ricardo or Roman Flugel. Perlon is another staple label in my collection over the years and there are lots of newer labels like The Nothing Special, My Own Jupiter, Lobster Theremin, Giegling, Tripp and Time Passages that I’m always keeping an eye on.
TK: What are a couple of records that you gravitate towards when playing a set and why?
LJ: My set list is changing all the time and I never play the same set of records twice. I need to keep it exciting for me as well as the crowd so I’m not one of those DJs who is still playing the same signature track from set to set. Recently however I have played things like ‘Whiskey Pineapple’ by 100Hz or Frankie Bones – ‘Funky Acid Makossa’ in consecutive sets.
TK: Tell us a little bit about the trajectory of Sensoramic and how it came to be.
LJ: Again it was another natural progression. When you’ve been producing for awhile there comes a time when you want to take charge of releasing music yourself so you can present a package of music exactly the way you want it. You can shape the direction of the music as well as the art and releasing music these days is an expression of who you and your artists are. With the combination of each cover and the direction of the tracks you pull together you’re making a statement and I guess I felt it was about time I made my own statement.
TK: Dream festival line-up?
LJ: I listen to a lot of classical music in my downtime and artists like Ludovico Einaudi, Philip Glass or Nils Frahm and I find the grey area being explored between classical and electronic music by artists like Nils Frahm, Göteburg String Theory or Kate Simko’s LEO really interesting. So, for something different in a festival setting I’d like to see some of my favourite modular synthesis masters accompanying my favourite modern classical composers. Imagine an electronic master of minimalism like Ricardo jamming with Steve Reich the master of classical minimalism?
Stage it in an amazing natural setting and you’ll make my year.
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