TD 1
You might know him better as successful Irish sin
ger songwriter David Kitt, but I associate more with his electronic alter ego, New Jackson. A few weeks away from his second album in this (dis)guise, I learn of origins and influences, COVID and collaborations, residence and rereleases from this somewhat unique, dual talent. WORDS David Carr PHOTO Neil J Smyth There is a consistency to the sound of New Jackson since its inception. I always felt it would have been a good fit for German electronic label Kompakt Recordings; But some of this album is quite a departure from your previous output. In fact, the album title OOPS!... POP suggests you accidentally almost made a pop record. I just really wanted to make something concise, something that would fit on a single vinyl album of around 40 minutes. So, I had a very specific thing in mind and in some ways, it could still be on Kompakt. Something like Si Si Si has got that real New Jackson sound, but it’s in a 3.5 minute format. In fact, Permanent Vacation (Label) are constantly asking me to make my tracks shorter. When I started New Jackson, I knew straight away it was a world onto itself. It just had this very clear sound and identity and that’s still the core of the project. So, I think this was just a kind of a diversion, in the sense that the name suggests, oops, I’ve made a pop album or oops, I’ve almost made a pop album as you said, because there’s still some weird stuff on there. The track Burnt Deep, is that a Pepe Braddock reference to ‘Deep Burnt’ or is it just a coincidence? It is, yeah, a cheeky little reference to Pepe Braddock. I mean a lot of Pepe Braddock’s stuff is made on an SP1200 drum machine which I use for most of that track and sample driven. I think deep house could possibly be at its most uncool at the moment, so for me that’s always, “I’m going to make some deep house”, because I hate wilfully following trends or fads, particularly in electronic music. I tend to be attracted to things when they’re at their least cool or something. NEW SON You worked with Donnacha Costello on this album, his output has been more sporadic in recent years. How did that collaboration come about? I just had a feeling, we’ve always got on and we have very compatible personalities. He’s someone who is just so sure, without being egotistical or pushy. He really knows what’s going on in the studio. He can move something over, a millimetre to the left and you just go “Woah, OK, got you”. We wrote three tracks very quickly in one day in my studio, and that one (Si, Si, Si) was knocking around. It had something really special. It was quite instrumental and I asked him if I could use it for the record. So, I added some things. I actually added things to it that are very Donnacha Costello things, that were total rip offs of stuff on the Colorseries and then I had this melody and this idea. The vocoder stuff is someone asking questions about “do you still believe”, it’s kind of abstract. It could be a relationship, it could be a friendship, it could be a creative situation or whatever, and the response is “yes, yes, yes”, I do. One of the more remarkable tracks is the ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ cover. How long was that knocking around in your head? 45