Matt Rowan & Jaytech: Trained to Kill

If you’ve been following the world of progressive house music lately, you’ll likely have seen the names Matt Rowan and Jaytech before.  If you’re really switched on, you may already have a few of their tunes in your collection.  If you do, you’re in good company – despite only having worked together a short period of time, this all-Australian duo has caught the eyes and ears of some of the world’s most widely respected DJs, with releases and remixes appearing on recent compilations by Dave Seaman, Steve Porter, Tiesto and Markus Schulz.  With such success in the studio its no wonder these two have now set their sights on bringing their unique blend of melodic beats to clubbers across Australia as a live/DJ act.  ITM caught up with the boys to find out more.

“I’ve always been in to music,” Jaytech (real name James Cayzer) tells me as our conversation begins.  Having begun formal piano lessons at the tender age of 6, the 21-year old Canberran gave up his childhood plans of becoming a performance pianist in order to explore producing electronic music after being exposed to the likes of Paul Van Dyk as a teenager.  In contrast to the blasé attitude so many electronic musicians seem to take towards formal musical training, Jaytech credits his extensive musical education for sparking his interest in electronic music composition.  “I played the piano for twelve years, earning my Licentiate in Piano Performance before deciding I really was more partial to the electronic side of things,” Jaytech explains to me from his home in Canberra.  Scanning the information I’ve gathered on his career to date, I start to piece together the timeframe for Jaytech’s career to date and am struck by how easily the young musician was able to shift from classical to modern electronic dance music: his first commercial release, the aptly-titled Music 101, was released in 2004 on UK-based Blu-room Records.

The duo’s other half, Sydney-based Matt Rowan, is similarly no stranger to formal musical training, having spent a significant part of his youth studying music as well.  “In terms of collaborating in the studio, it makes things so much easier as we can talk musical terminology,” Matt explains to me.  Having listened to a number of the duo’s productions during the course of researching this article, Matt’s comments – and his description of his musical upbringing, with stints on both the flute and the drums – went a long way towards explaining the fluid, ethereal melodies and rock-solid percussion that seem to typify the Rowan and Jaytech sound.  “I guess you could call us progressive,” Matt concedes.  “But, I think progressive has earned something of a bad rap, and most of what people associate with that term really has very little to do with what we’re doing.”  As one who’s had an ear for progressive sounds for many years, I found Matt’s comments intriguing.  “When progressive was hitting its peak, I think it took something of a nosedive into a deep, dark, scary world,” Matt explains.  “The purists loved it, but it happened at a time when progressive house was really at its greatest exposure, and as such a lot of people were alienated when the fun was lost.  We try not to take ourselves too seriously.”  So how, then, is the Rowan and Jaytech sound best described?  “Our music is dancefloor orientated, it’s not serious and it’s designed to leave people with a smile on their face.  Sometimes it’s fine to let music drift you off to a faraway place, but ultimately I think clubbers pay their hard earned money to go out and have a party – and that’s what we aim to deliver with our music.”

Listening to their latest single, Tomorrow, with its uplifting melody, swirling pads, ethereal vocals and mile-wide electro bassline, it’s easy to see why Matt would be quick to distance the Rowan and Jaytech sound from the traditional progressive house moniker – and to see where the appeal lies for melody-heavy DJs such as Tiesto and Dave Seaman.  “It’s funky, with a catchy melody,” Matt tells me about Tomorrow, and I ask for some detail on how the track came about. “We’d met almost a year earlier, when we were both booked to play a gig in Adelaide.  We found our sounds worked really well together and that we got along really well personally,” Matt explains.  “Jim came to Sydney, busted out his first live show and it completely blew me away, what he was capable of doing on the fly with just a laptop and a controller.  We became good friends, and before long Jim had invited me down to Canberra to work on a couple tunes with him.”  By the end of their first full day in the studio, Tomorrow had been completed.

If the process by which one of the catchiest dance tracks to come out of Australia this year was written seemed quick, the process by which it landed into the record boxes of top progressive house jocks Nick Warren, Hernan Cattaneo was even quicker.  “We sent the tune off to a few people here in Australia that we knew would know what to do with it if they liked it,” Matt recalls, “and we got a phone call back right away, with them saying ‘we really love the tune!’.  So we thought that was nice, but didn’t think much of it.  It wasn’t until we were driving back to Sydney from Canberrra the day after and I’d received seventeen missed calls from a label rep in California that we really realised we were probably on to something.”  Not long afterwards, they handed a copy to Hope Recordings A&R man Nick Warren in Sydney, only to have him play it at his very next gig in Canberra.  “Both sides!” enthuses Matt.  “And, it was quite trippy having Nick Warren buy us a beer.”

Noting that his bio indicates he was born in 1985, I ask Jim if his youth has caused any difficulties in his attempts to break into the global dance music scene.  “It’s definitely more of an uphill battle than I bargained for when I first decided to start writing dance music at 14,” he acknowledges.  “I thought it was one of these things where you just keep writing tunes until you hit that big record and then you’re sorted, but it’s not turned out that way.  Each single is made for a niche market, and in this industry tracks really only last a few months before fading from the limelight if they’re not an instant classic.” 

Despite his youth, Jaytech still has a keen appreciation for the traditional tools of the DJ trade.  “I quite like vinyl, to be honest.  In terms of owning a track, I really do much prefer to have the actual physical thing in my hand.  Vinyl may die at some point in the next decade, I suppose, but for now I think it still has a lot of life left in it.  Even when I play from a laptop, I still use Rane’s Serato Scratch Live as I prefer the hands-on feel.”  With nearly a dozen vinyl releases in the works and the big-basslined, Infusion-esque Identify Me, Jaytech’s recent collaboration with iconic Sydney DJ and producer Mark Dynamix, currently enjoying healthy sales as a full vinyl release on the popular Australian dance music label Hussle, it’s easy to see where Jim’s belief in the ‘old faithful’ needle-in-groove analogue format comes from.

The topic turns to a discussion of the duo’s upcoming gigs.  In contrast to many DJing and production duos, Rowan and Jaytech don’t actually play together at all.  “We’ve found our sounds work best when we play consecutively, rather than concurrently,” Matt tells me.  “It provides a nice contrast, in that I play a traditional DJ set while Jim plays a live Ableton-based set of entirely unreleased material.”  “It’s certainly more of a risk,” Jim acknowledges.  “Playing entirely unreleased material, as I do in my live sets, isn’t the usual DJ-style format, but for me when I go out I prefer to hear stuff I’ve never heard before.  I work to an hour-long set, so the way I see it it’s more like a big hour-long mix of all original material.”

With a number of Australian gigs lined up and discussions regarding the possibility of an overseas jaunt already being considered, the future looks bright indeed for the dynamic Australian duo that is Matt Rowan and Jaytech.  If their studio productions and the reputations surrounding their previous appearances are anything to go by, those lucky enough to catch these two in action in the near future are likely to be witnessing the early years of what promises to be a fruitful and rewarding musically-minded partnership.

If you’re in Sydney you can catch Matt Rowan and Jaytech playing Habit at Candy’s Apartment on Friday May 12th. Otherwise, you can hear their track ‘Tomorrow’ features on Dave Seaman’s latest mix CD, ‘Renaissance Masters Series, Vol 7’.

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