Daniel Jacobson’s second ‘Zoid vs Musicians’ album, entitled ‘Zoid vs Musicians Vol 2’, has been a long, long process. That fits, we suppose, with the unusual elements of the album: it’s knowingly niche, a blend of jazz and techno styles that doesn’t, in theory, make a lot of sense. But that’s kind of the point.
“The album took 17 years because I kept on leaving it and coming back to it,” Jacobson says. “I always knew I’d eventually finish it, but I need to jump around different projects to keep myself interested. At one stage I did nothing for four years, then did a couple of tracks, then got sidetracked, and so on. You can’t force yourself, you work to your own strengths.”
“I generated something like a backing track in most cases, and sent it to a musician. I’d email the backing track and they’d record themselves improvising over it. A couple of tracks were recorded in studios. There’s some improvisation, it’s all very loose,” he explains.
So are the roots, something of a self-created scene. “There is a jazz electronica scene, but it’s a hard thing to do well,” Jacobson says. “There are a couple of projects that do things well, especially live, but not many. Jazz is all about responding to each other, and electronic music is all about the creation of the producer in the studio, without that response. I try to make the electronics respond to the improvisations. But it’s inherently contradictory as a way of making music. Sometimes I kick myself.”
“The productions take a long time, simply because it wouldn’t work if the beats were very static. Making the production of the music respond in detailed ways to what a person is doing is important, something I’m always playing around with.”
“I have a label too, which is somewhat of a necessity making music. In my world you could send things to labels all day long for years, and it’s very hard to get someone to spend money releasing a record for you. Very few can even break even, so the label idea is kind of self defeating. You end up doing it yourself. I’ve only released two artists apart from myself, so it’s primarily about my own music, but if I come across something incredible that other people aren’t aware of, I have to try and do something.”
“For me, success is measured in being able to collaborate with certain people, through my profile, and I have managed that. It’s going in the right direction. I have a 2025 project that will have a few really lifelong dream remixes, but those are in the early days.”
“In some ways my freestyling and improvising connect to hip-hop. The best live performance, for me, is one that’s very much improvised, one that comes with risk. The audience get very drawn into that. Electronic music is famously hard to perform live, as it’s boring to watch someone stand on stage live and press play on a laptop.”
“One idea I’d have is to tour with two shows, an instrumental, jazz-type venue early in the morning, and then a techno, club-like set later.”
“I’d like to do more performances with gigs that feature the musicians. The way I do it means that I can have an awful gig. It has to be like that, if you’re gigging all the time, like Frank Zappa, you have to do six months of rehearsal before a tour. You have to be ready to turn it on if everything goes wrong. It’s about giving the audience their money’s worth. I like the idea of that, a show that works even in the worst scenario.”
Zoid vs Musicians VOl 2 is out now.
