Last week, the Spanish producer, DJ, and artist JASSS released her third LP, Eager Buyers, an intense record that doesn’t neatly slot into any single genre container. It doesn’t even slot into any two or three genre containers. There’s a lot happening on the album—it consistently knocks the listener off their axis. At various points, field recordings and bass guitar and breakbeats play off each other; the stinging music complements the record’s conceptual throughline—the album title should tip you off—which has to do in part with the lost promises of the market economy.
Listening to this new record and diving into the artist’s—real name: Silvia Jiménez Alvarez—equally unclassifiable back catalog made us curious to know more about her story, all the way from the very beginning: her roots growing up in Northern Spain, her relationship with trip-hop music (clearly an influence on this new record), her time in Berlin, and a lot more. We also get into AWOS, the label she started. Read her answers and listen to Eager Buyers, below.
Growing up in Northern Spain, what are some early memories you have of listening to electronic music?
JASSS: Asturias nightlife back then was quite full of parties. Clubs like “La Real” “El Jardin” as well as multiple parties happening in many bars and small venues made the weekends quite eventful. The changes in government and law dramatically affected the scenes, nothing is left from that, really, but back then we had a lot to choose from.
My village was the place to go on Sundays after partying everywhere else, so I grew up surrounded by an unusual amount of jacking bouncy loopy techno coming out of a lot of small bars around the main square. I still remember the feeling of hearing it as something I’ve never heard before but I instantly understood. There, folk music is very rich; bagpipes, snare drums, and panderetas are everywhere. There are a lot of great musicians in that genre and some of them were experimenting with electronic music.
My friend Xel (back then aka Da Robotz) had the first studio I've ever stepped in, he is a fantastic producer and multi-instrumentalist. In his place, I saw the breakdown of a track for the first time, heard the separate parts of a complicated sounding piece of music, and expanded my listening capacity and curiosity. Also there were free raves in the forest, big rural houses and sometimes in Cole, mining facilities. Those were magical actually.
What lessons have you learned from punk and hardcore music?
That intensity, density and intention are very important. Also to disregard authority.
Your new record has a major trip hop sensibility. What is your history, broadly speaking, with that genre?
I grew up listening to it: Sneaker Pimps, Portishead, Lamb, Tricky, Goldfrapp, Massive Attack … and others that technically aren’t trip hop like Hybrid, Amon Tobin, DJ Krush, Bjork … I was obsessed with Boards of Canada. The trip hop sensibility can be found in many genres actually, it’s in the atmosphere and the background storytelling for me.
Can you remember the first track you ever made? What did it sound like? How did you feel after it was finished?
I don’t, but I was writing a lot of sort of primitive IDM, I was in that phase for a long time. I think there is something to the long sequences, plucky sounds, airy pads I was and am very attracted to. So my guess is that it was a mix of fast, rhythmic, heavy on the melody but dark and proggy … and prob a little cringe.
How did moving to Berlin affect your output as a producer?
Just being so overexposed to music was an influence, suddenly any genre was blasting out of big speakers near me, all the time. So much to choose from, so many possibilities. Seeing so many people excited about dancing, sharing, making music was a really uplifting feeling, and it was almost omnipresent. The city was a 24/7 theme park, it was cheap and trashy and many other good things.
I wasn’t a producer then, I was just exploring, recording and making sounds with any means available. That sense of creative possibility, of not needing much to make something came out of Berlin partially. I don’t know how my music or my sound would be had I been somewhere else, but I do know that it is how it is because I was in Berlin, a little like “I am from Berlin” in a sense.
You recently launched a new label. What kind of record labels are you looking to for historical inspiration and guidance?
AWOS is really omnivorous, the main thought is hosting multiple kinds of sounds among other things, it’s not married to specific type of music or format. Entr'acte, Modern Love, 4AD or of course iDEAL recordings have been historically influential. I still feel like I operate from a very intuitive place, so the label is in a very liquid state and, today, I hope it will remain that way. I just wanna get away with doing what I want, really.
Any major non-musical influences at the moment?
Most of my influences are non-musical. I've lived in cities for a very long time now. Being in nature (like really in nature, not in a cute manmade forest outside of Berlin) always has an effect of serenity on me in a really solemn way. It makes me perceive different things, resets my parameters, and re-arranges my priorities a little.
Talking with/listening to certain people, some of them my friends, has a similar effect. Sometimes a person will choose to share their latest realisation with me in a really eloquent and honest way, really letting me feel through their experience, really managing to transmit the wisdom in their new realisation. I consider that a gift to keep and learn from. I guess what I mean is “people being very real about what their existence feels like” influences me greatly.
What does the dream JASSS collaboration look like?
Anything Elisabeth Fraser is the dreamy dream. You know how responding questions is though … Once asked, I forget every artist/band I love but Dry Cleaning, Anohni, SRSQ, Moor Mother, Lustmord, come to mind now. Also working with James K and Tongue in the Mind has been pretty dreamy. I would love to make music for film, I get reminded of that when watching the films of Rodrigo Sorogoyen or Carla Simón for example. Also for video games like Souls games, or Skyrim (obvious answers only here).
If you could go back and give music or music production advice to your younger self, what would it be?
Save everything, back everything up, the intuition you have now is precious and you’ll want to revisit it.
