Jamie Paton Talks

Music

Jamie Paton is one half of the very excellent Cage & Aviary. He also produces rather fine records solo under his own name. Of late he's become the unofficial production figurehead for the consistently excellent Emotional Especial label, an offshoot and now label in its own right of Emotional Rescue/Response imprints, remixing and producing numerous EPs for said label. He is playing black discs in the capital this weekend so we thought it high time we had a chat with him about venturing out on his own, his production partner with Cage and Aviary's MASSIVE arms and few other bits besides.

Hi Jamie, what are you doing in Mallorca?

I like to head off and find my centre, my inner peace before a big gig, really delve deep into mother nature's cosmic cupboard. It's not very cost-effective.

What do you think about when you hike up hills?

The next step / when lunch is / am I a bit bored yet – I think I am / shall I have a beer or a frozen yoghurt at the end of this / would slouchy techno work as a new genre

You’ve been producing and remixing as yourself recently. What’s driven this decision and what are the pluses and minuses about working alone and together with Nige.

Nigel has massive arms, a wingspan of about 3 metres, which allows him to navigate extremely intricate pedal-chains with consummate ease. So I'm missing that but at the same time those arms can get a bit wieldy, so I've gained some space to move.

Nige also has natural musicality, which imbues the C&A material with a lot of personality, helps give us character. On my own it's more difficult in a way, but this drives the aesthetic into an interesting place – one where random chance is king. I've always liked the naive feel of some early dance trax and electronics, so in this sense my limitations become a plus point.

Tell us about dipping your toe into modular synthesis.

Well I fell in love with a sequencer on YouTube (intellijel metropolis) and we've been going steady for a while now. It's a complex animal but I think it'll prove worthwhile.

Modular synthesis is a scary crazy world, full of seriously smart folk. Again it's the random factor that appeals to me – you hook up a chain of modules and things will only happen in that moment, things you couldn't repeat if you tried.

I'd much rather organise some wildly unpredictable chaos than repeatedly throw around pre-conceived notions of what I think a track should be, in the hope that something sticks.

How did your love affair with Mr Fairplay and Mr Fraser first come about. I hear you’ve been working with them a fair bit recently.

Absolutely, they helped me produce my first EP and they're currently helping finish the second. Just a right place right time right people kinda deal I guess – Stuart put me in touch and they were into my demos and that was that. Music that lay dorment for years finally got the help it needed. It's really helped me move on in terms of producing on my own.

Bizarre Feeling was obviously a massive nod to New Order. Where next for Paton solo productions?

Probably Aha-esque balearica, inspired equally by the Norwegian pop outfit and norfolk's finest. Or I'll turn the sequencers on and hope that good shit comes out.

You kicked off the Emotional Especial label with said bizarre feeling. You’ve now done a mix summing up the label. What does EE mean to you? You’ve had quite a hand in shaping the label’s sound with your releases.

It meant that someone (Stuart) believed in what I was doing – and I completely believed in where he wanted to take the label. Essentially a good match!

Everything on the label so far has a bit of depth to it, some real, off-the-grid musicality, feeling, or authenticity, for want of a better word, and people definitely buy into that.