Underskog

Jackmaster | Kids Love Bass | Karima

The Gregorian calendar might say 2016, but every Thursday at Jæger, DJ Nuhhh (KLB) and Karima transport their audiences to a different time. RETRO captures the essence of Jæger’s musical versatility and weaves it seamlessly through Disco, Garage, Soul, Gospel, Acid House and Techno with a focus on the music of the past and the influences of today. RETRO has been a staple on Jæger’s calendar since day one with the weekly residents often joined by an international- and local booking. This week they joined forces with Kids Love Bass to bring together a booking the DJ duo have been eager to get to Oslo since day one.

Kids Love Bass came together when DJ Nuhhh and Seth Skizzo instantly bonded over a shared love of all things bass, routed in the origins of growing up listening to Hip-Hop in Oslo. As a DJ duo they love to draw parallels between a wide variety of electronic genres and audio landscapes in their sets. House, garage, dubstep and UK funky are amongst the different styles that work their way from the turntables and out on the dance floor, but they try to avoid such concrete labels, dictated rather by the impulses of the dance floor and the night. As a promotional duo and purveyors of all things bass in Oslo, their résumé is an impressive one, featuring past bookings like Bok Bok, DJ Rashad, Lil Silva, Scratcha DVA and Cosmin TRG, but there’s one name that’s eluded them all this time and it took the combined effort of Retro and Kids Love Bass to get him here…. Jackmaster.

You never know exactly what you’re going to hear with Jackmaster. The element of glorious surprise is crucial to his sets: from the lost Dance Mania gems he spends his time unearthing to forgotten Disco tracks to straight-up house and techno sets, the Numbers co-founder has more options up his sleeve than just about any other DJ out there – and a rare knack for connecting seemingly disparate styles with each other. “I don’t do eclecticism just for eclecticism’s sake,” he states firmly.

What you are guaranteed to get is a master selector’s instinct for creating and riding the energy of a crowd: few can get a dancefloor as hyped as Jackmaster. “I don’t think about music in terms of genre, I think about it in terms of energy levels,” he says – and as his star has risen over the past few years, this has been on perfect display at parties from Glasgow to Berlin to New York, and from superclubs such as Berghain and Fabric to legendary underground warehouse parties.
He’s also proven that populist tendencies can have longevity, if done right: unbelievably, it’s now 10 years since the Numbers club night was founded, forging a tight-knit and loyal scene in which Jackmaster and like-minded Glaswegian’s could hone their skills. Now, the world can’t get enough of their sounds: the Numbers influence has spread across clubs and into the mainstream, with names such as Jessie Ware, SBTRKT, Rustie, Hudson Mohawke and Jamie xx all having released material with the label.

At the heart of Jackmaster’s wide-ranging sensibility is a fundamental honesty: he believes in neither following trends nor the concept of guilty pleasures. His commitment to both honesty and energy encapsulates what can make dance culture life-changingly thrilling: it’s about the clubber on the dancefloor reacting instantaneously and truthfully to the music. Few cater to that dancer as effectively as Jackmaster – no mere “crowd-pleaser”, but someone always guaranteed to please the crowd.