In the mid ‘90’s, UK
artist Martin Iveson aka Atjazz found himself in
the middle of a burgeoning Midlands dance scene quite by
accident. Drawn to Derby from the North East for his day job
(Iveson produces music and sound effects for some of the
worlds leading computer games including Tomb Raider) he
soon started to look to dance music as another creative
outlet. He began recording under the Atjazz guise in 1996
(named after an episode of the cartoon “TopCat”), and released
his first EP “Story” that same year on Mantis Recordings
(www.mantis-recordings.com), a label Iveson set up with record
shop manager Andy McCandless.
This downbeat gem
(“Story”) brought him to the attention of Nottingham’s DIY who
went on to release several Atjazz twelves over the next few
years, including his debut album That Something. The
album was picked up by Sony Japan and hit a nerve with music
lovers across the globe. This attention brought Iveson/Atjazz
remix work from labels such as Naked Music, and Japan’s Flower
Records, as well as artists Charles Webster, Miguel Migs, and
Bob Sinclair for Yellow Productions.
After Atjazz’s successful
work with DIY, partners Iveson and McCandless resurrected
Mantis Recordings in 1998 for Atjazz’s musical output and that
of their friends. The first track to be released in two years
was Atjazz’s “Fifth Quarter”, which found it’s way into the
hefty boxes of Terry Francis, Kenny Hawkes, and Luke Solomon.
Working with various local
musicians on his productions, he found he was linking up with
one guy in particular, Pete Wraight. Pete had been
writing and playing live with Charles Webster’s Presence
project and more recently on Herbert’s new album. Pete, a
pure jazzman, was the perfect collaborator for Atjazz and as
Labfunk took shape it became clear that he was
firmly on board for the duration.
LabFunk is a term Martin
Iveson and Andy McCandless use to describe music that isn’t
quite “pure this or pure that” but is instead quite simply
something else. A perfect label for this series of tracks
from Atjazz; new musical genre or just a great album? Either
way Labfunk should be remembered!
Release Date: February 5, 2002.
Atjazz discography
STORY EP
