Prolouge

Digital downloads. In the last few months the concept has gone from a ridiculous idea to a fantastic revolution. With so many names jumping on the bandwagon its confusing to know who’s the real deal and who’s best left alone. Audiojelly falls into the first category, the real deal. Why? Because the blokes behind Audiojelly have been house hold names in the trance industry since before you learned to tie your own shoe lace. Ok maybe not that long but the names Space Brothers, Kansai, Lustral and Chakra (to name but a few) are held in very high regard with just about everyone. With so many hits under their belt its refreshing to know our musical preference is in good hands, if this is the beginning of the digital revolution, then Audiojelly is certainly leading the way.

Interview

MPFS - First off, when did you all congregate together to create what is now?

Ricky - Steve and I have been writing together for many years, and likewise Tony has been working on his own productions since the early nineties.
Tony and Steve worked together on the remix for 'Remember me' by Jorio, and Tony and I work together on the Kansai and Quadraphonic projects.

MPFS - After forming how long did it take to break the scene and have a hit?

Ricky - We had our first top 40 hit with a track called 'Stay with Me' under our project Ultrahigh in 1995. Chakra followed soon after that and then Ascension, The Space Brothers, etc.

MPFS - Why so many different guise’s?

Ricky - A complete identity crisis. Actually, we all created so many different pseudonyms because we were all coming up with too much material for one record label to release, so to get the music out there, we needed to have different projects to make it work.

MPFS - Lustral is certainly my favourite by far, which do you have the most fun with?

Ricky - Lustral has been well received by a lot of people, spread over a lot of genres, so that project has been quite fulfilling. It's hard to say which project is the most fun, as making the music for all of them is very rewarding. it is fun though when you don't have restrictions, like when we were asked to write the theme tune for the manumission movie. We didn't need to worry about music style or bpm's so 'Lost in Space' was a very liberating track to work on.

MPFS - You’ve recently started up audiojelly.com, can you tell us a little more about this project?

Ricky - Audiojelly.com is a music download store specifically for dance music. We are selling high quality mp3s covering some of the music from the best labels and artists in global dance music.

MPFS - It certainly looks the piece, what prompted the making of the site?

Ricky - In a nutshell, the collapse of the music industry - particularly dance music. From 2001, global sales have declined so rapidly that the whole industry is practically in meltdown. We have witnessed so many labels being axed, going into liquidation, and slowly dying. Some of our good friends have lost everything they worked years for to achieve, and from a personal point of view, we could see a future where labels were not only rare, but unlikely to survive in the current climate. With this in mind, we came up with the idea of audiojelly to regain some control of getting our music out there, regardless of the traditional business model recovering or not.

MPFS - What do you see for the future of vinyl what with Digital Music, making its mark on the Dj circuit?

Ricky - Hard to say. A lot of evidence points to the cd taking over for djs but there are many who still play off vinyl, so there will always be a place for it. In reality though, it is becoming a smaller part of the dj'ing experience as every month rolls on.

MPFS - Do you think the risk of piracy is greatly increased with more and more producers/labels turning to Digital format to get their music heard?

Ricky- Yes and no. If you put your music out into the digital arena - it is open to the risk of piracy, but the truth is, there is little difference if it is only availabe on vinyl.
We released a Space Brothers single only on vinyl in december last year. 6 months before the release, one of the mixes had made its way onto an illegal site. Some things you just cannot control.

MPFS - What's been your biggest achievement to date?

Ricky - Por me personally as a song i would say 'i am'. it is the song closest to my heart. But speaking on behalf of all three of us, i would say our biggest achievement is taking place right now. What we are doing with audiojelly is something special. The feedback we have had alone tells us that. I have no doubt that Audiojelly will be something we will all be very proud to have been a part of.

MPFS - And finally, what plans do we have for the future, anything exciting?

Ricky - After setting up Audiojelly for the last 12 months, i am lookng forward to a night where i have more than 4 hours sleep!

From all the staff at MPFSPromotions we'd like to thank Ricky and the rest of the lads at Audiojelly for his/their time and wish him/them all the best in 2004 and beyond. If your part of the digital revolution Audiojelly is well worth bookmarking.

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