As far as dance music producers go, Australia’s Jaytech has wasted little time making his way to the front of the queue.  He’s been making music since the age of 14, and in the eight years since, he’s seen his original productions and remixes picked up by everyone from Ministry of Sound to Tiësto to Dave Seaman and Nick Warren – and pretty much everyone in between.  After spending a number of years releasing single after single on the unsuspecting masses, building his profile along the way, 2008 sees Jaytech releasing an artist album, entitled Everything is OK.  

The first artist album to be released on Above and Beyonds Anjunabeats offshoot Anjunadeep, Everything is OK combines some of Jaytech’s recent releases with a significant amount of new material.  But while this may be his first full-length album, Jaytech is certainly no stranger to electronic dance music.

 “Back when I was 12, 13 years old, I was listening to a lot of Paul Van Dyk,” Jaytech explains of his early years as a dance music aficionado.  “One PVD CD in particular, Vorsprung Dyk Technik, I ordered from Germany – it really had an effect on me.  But I also listened to some pop, and some pop-infused dance, like Dune, the poppy-happy-hardcore folks.  When I first started making music, it was 155bpm, really hard trancey stuff, but over the past four years I’ve really slowed down what I’ve been making.”

 In some ways Jaytech, who grew up and began his career in the small Australian city of Canberra, has been something of a poster boy for proving that, at least as far as dance music production goes, it doesn’t much matter where you’re from if your music is good enough. “It was a chance, a choice to go to where all the action was,” Jaytech says of his recent decision to move to the UK.  “Also, I wanted to be closer to a lot of the more popular areas of the world, such as the US and the rest of Europe so that I can get back and forth to gigs more easily, and to deal with the folks on my label in person.”

For many who follow the movings and shakings of underground melodic dance music, Jaytech’s signing to Anjunabeats represented the logical conclusion of a curious trip through more than a handful of smaller labels, including Jaytech’s own, Red Seven.  “The story goes back to my track Starbright in 2006, the very first track that I released on Red Seven,” Jaytech explains. “The Anjunabeats crew got in touch with me halfway through the release process for it, and said that they were interested in putting it out.  At the time, I couldn’t do that, as it was the flagship for my new label.  They said ‘if we can’t release it, we’ll at least support it’, and so they put it on their Anjunabeats Worldwide CD.  Ever since then, I’ve been working closely with them, and they’ve had a real interest in my music.  I did a few remixes for them, and from there, they suggested that I could do an artist album for them, and I took them up on the offer!"

The album itself is comprised partially of the sort of bassline-driven, dance-floor friendly music Jaytech is known for, and partially of slower, more afterhours material.  While Jaytech's dancefloor sensibilities are already well proven, the more relaxed pace of the non-nightclub type tracks allows Jaytech's extensive musical training and uncanny ability to knock out a top-rate melody shine in equal proportion.  Little wonder, then, that DJ Magazine recently described Everything is OK as "lush, melodic, and soaked in electronic groove – a crossover gem."  Perhaps the best example of just how easily Jaytech can move from dance floor to den and back again is with the last track on the album, Drive.  A rolling, introspective piece, it features the vocals of Australian Melody Gough.  "I did that one very quickly, in a couple of days right at the end," Jaytech admits.  "The live feel that you hear, is me playing everything in on my MIDI controller and leaving it pretty much as it went in."  

By all accounts, the Anjunabeats crew scored something of a coup by lining Jaytech's opus up as the first artist album to be released under the Anjunadeep flag.  “Their hearts are in the right place,” Jaytech says of the Anjuna crew.  “As tacky as that sounds, I feel like they have my interests at heart, and not just their own.  They’re also very on-the-ball where it comes to marketing their music, and to getting my name out there, that kind of thing.  After a hundred releases, they’re getting pretty good at what they do.  All the Above and Beyond guys have a good sense of how the industry works, who their target audience is, and how they can best reach out to them.”

As an established label helmed by experienced music industry professionals, Jaytech sees Anjunabeats as better positioned than many labels to weather the ongoing music industry turmoil that threatens so many labels’ business models.  “I think that artists and labels need to recognize that an ever greater proportion of their audience is comprised of people who aren’t paying for their music,” Jaytech explains.  “Rather than scoffing at it, the industry needs to realize that there is a storm on the horizon, and that it’s inevitable.  And so it’s going to take a lot more than just making records and putting them out and selling them.  Things like radio play and live performances – using the new releases of an artist to promote tours and so on – are going to be vital.  Most producers nowadays, most of the money they make is from travel and touring rather than releases anyways.  The labels that succeed will embrace every avenue they can, from Beatport to video Podcasts to live performances, and everything in between.”

But for as much as Jaytech’s music has won him many fans, it’s still rather hard for many to define just what kind of music it is that he makes.  “I’m often given a trance label by virtue of being with Anjunabeats,” he admits.  “On the other hand, there are some Anjuna fans that are a bit disappointed in that my music isn’t trancey enough for them…  but at the end of the day, I make what I make, and as long as there’s a whole bunch of people out there that like it, I’m going to keep making it!”

So what does the future hold for Jaytech?  “I think the most important thing for me is to write what feels right at the time, and to have the trust in my audience that they will take my word, rather than what everyone else is saying about,” he offers.  “I don’t really mind what kind of music people see me as, what’s important is that they’re listening to it, and they like it, regardless of what it’s called.”

Jaytech’s first artist album, Everything is OK, is out now on Anjunadeep.