Moda Black: Jaymo and Andy George interview
People like Jaymo and Andy George exist to prove to people that anything is possible. For this enigmatic DJ, production and label boss duo it has been as rags to riches as is possible in the world of club music. The pair started their Moda concept back in 2008 in the small UK town of Lincoln, flyering on the streets themselves with no previous experience of running club events.
In just 4 years the boys have built a musical empire – They have sold out 7,000 capacity warehouse raves, held down a residency at London’s Fabric, been the youngest DJs to record a BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix and started up not one but two record labels; Moda Music and Moda Black. Their secret? Eclecticism, innovation and downright hard work. The culmination of the Moda story so far is celebrated in the new Moda Black compilation, on which the boys have secured yet another major coup. The mix features 13 tracks and remixes by some of the hottest buzz artists of the year, such as Eats Everything, The 2 Bears, Hot Since 82 and Disclosure, with each track being 100% exclusive to the album.
As the boys share our “anything goes” approach to music, we at Tokyo Indie were extremely excited to get the opportunity to have an exclusive 5 minutes with them to find out all about the Moda saga and of course, the hot new compilation.
Hey guys, how have you been?
We’ve been great! After months of preparation and hard-work we’re finally ready to unleash our new compilation, it’s been a long time coming!
It’s all kicking off with your new compilation album ‘Moda Black’ to be released very soon (July 9th). Are you excited about this project? When
did the idea for the album first come about?
We thought a compilation would be a great way to introduce our new sister label, Moda Black, to the world. The idea was to showcase some of the brand new artists we’d signed to the label; people like Mia Dora and Jett, whilst also including some seriously hot artists that we were into, Disclosure, Shadow Child & Eats Everything, for example. It was difficult to predict how it would come together as we wanted the mix to sound and feel natural too, and we think it is. We’re really excited about this because it’s the culmination of a lot of hard-work, from both all the artists involved and the team for making it happen. All the tracks are 100% exclusive to the album, so everything came together impeccably.
How did you go about selecting artists/tracks for the album and why were the ones featured chosen?
It was an organic process really; we’re exposed to so much music everyday and had a core family of artists we knew would be involved with Moda Black right from the start. All the tracks have their own little story behind them. There were producers that we were really into and wanted involved in the project, people like Lukas and Disclosure, others were working on separate artist EPs for the label and so we wanted to introduce them via our first mix album. With Nick Monaco & Kill Frenzy they sent us a demo of the track and we just loved it immediately. Then when we played it in a club we knew we had to sign it. It’s important for us to enjoy working with an artist and we want it to be as beneficial for them as humanly possible, it feels like a cool little family of artists.
What is your favourite track on the album?
We honestly couldn’t choose one. They’re all brilliant for different reasons. We play all the tracks in clubs but at different times of the night, or in different environments.
What is the relationship between Moda Black and Moda Music?
It’s a sort of yin and yang situation, we want the two to work in harmony with each other, but do slightly different things. Moda Music is for lighter sounds, like it’s previously been known for, live acts & bands and then disco. Moda Black is for darker stuff. Sometimes the lines will blur though. Our next EP on Moda Music is from a French artists called Plezier. Claude Von Stroke has already been hammering the A side, whilst also playing stuff from our compilation, so hopefully people could enjoy both harmoniously.
Do you think compilations will become a regular output from you and your label?
We hope so! It takes a lot more work than you might think, months in the making, but we’d love this to become a series – we should probably start working on the next one now in that case!
For more information on Jaymo and Andy George or the Moda Black compilation, click here.
Words: Mark Birtles
Translation: Iona Nagata
July 25, 2012
