Over the past year, Anjunadeep - the sister label of Above & Beyond's world renowned Anjunabeats, have been making waves with their range of textured progressive sounds, deep melodic techno and uplifting electronic house grooves. Their new compilation Anjunadeep: 03, mixed by imprint boss James Grant and the label's secret weapon - 25 year old, classically trained pianist, Jaytech, is the latest collection of signature tunes for the burgeoning label.

CGNY: What kind of music did you listen to growing up in Australia?

JT: I listened to a lot of Paul van Dyk and BT CDs when I was in primary school. I used to order them on import from Europe. I listened to a lot of trance music when I was younger. Around the time I was finishing school I made the move to house and progressive house and that was basically because we had a really good period of time in Canberra Australia, my home town where we had people like Sasha, Hybrid, Hernan Cattaneo all those kind of progressive artists coming through town. I used to go to a lot of events like that and it got me into the progressive house sound as well.

CGNY: How did your association begin with A&B – Anjunadeep come about?

JT: I was running my own label for a little while and they were keen on signing a couple of the releases that I put out on that label. And for the few tracks I had to tell them that I needed to release them on my own imprint or my label wasn’t going to have any material! So they said if they couldn’t release it as a single themselves they would at least support the tracks as they thought they were cool. So Above & Beyond put one of my tracks called Star Bright on a compilation of theirs and that got people from the Anjunabeats crowd interested in my music. So I started writing singles for them after that – that was about 2007. At the end of 07, the Anjunabeats team put on a festival in Goa and they flew me over there to play. So I met them all and then in 08 I decided to move to the UK to be closer to the scene and to work more closely with them.

CGNY: So how did they get the track initially – did you send them a demo?

JT: Well initially James Grant reached out. It was in the early stages of the release before it had been put out and they wanted to see if they could snap it up and release it themselves.

CGNY: You’re in Miami on the 24^th March. This is a promo for the Anjunadeep 03 CD with James Grant.

JT: Yes the party we are having in Miami. Room 1 is Anjunabeats and Room 2 is Anjunadeep – and that’s the official launch party for Anjunadeep 03. Myself and James Grant and a few other Anjunadeep artists such as Soundprank and a few other exciting additions to the line up which I’m not sure I can mention yet will be playing.

CGNY: So the Anjunadeep 03 CD has a lot of well-known artists including Tommy and Timmy from Ireland along with people like Matt Lange and Boom Jinx. How long did it take you to put it together?

JT: It was probably about 3 months in total and one of the hardest things to do was to decide what was not going on there. We had a huge influx of tracks coming in and James and me and about 3 or 4 other people were categorically going through everything and deciding yes or no on certain tracks. So yes about 3 months!

CGNY: You’ve remixed some of the tracks?

JT: We’ve done a re-rub of one of the tracks up there – it’s called Weekend Rubdown. We’ve taken the original version and essentially made a bootleg remix of it. So we’ve just fattened up the groove and made the whole thing sound a bit more progressive in a sound. And there is one new track from myself as well – Djembe!

CGNY: What’s the trance scene like in Australia right now?

JT: The trance scene is good but it’s the kind of thing that works better if you do a big one – off party now and then. I think Australia doesn’t have the population to support a trance scene week in week out and have really good numbers. Australians do festivals very well. It works better if they tour a few artists together and get everyone out for these bigger parties. That seems to be the best way it works over there.

CGNY: You just came back from India – where were you playing over there?

JT: I played in Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Calcutta.

CGNY: You didn’t get to Goa at all?

JT: Not this trip. I played there in 2007.

CGNY: Any New York gigs lined up in the future?

JT: We’re putting together another US trip at the moment. But I’m sure if I’m coming back to New York yet. I would really like to because the one time I’ve been to NY I literally arrived at about 7pm and flew out at 9 the next morning and didn’t see a thing.

CGNY: I was there at that event – one of the better nights at Pacha! So what do you do in your down time?

JT: I’m very lucky to get few weeks here and there between travel gigs. For example I’ve just finished this India tour and I’ve got about a week and a half free – to focus on my tracks. I’ve mountains of production work to do between my album and a few remixes I’m doing and a few collaborations. So it takes up most of my time when I’m at home. But apart from that I just hang out with my friends and play a lot of video games. I try to take it pretty easy because when I travel it tends to get a bit crazy.

CGNY: I wanted to ask you about Tommy and Timmy – how did you end up picking one of their tracks for Anjunadeep 03?

JT: It was one of the first ones to be green lit for the compilation. It gets a really good response when I play it out. They’ve also done a remix of an old classic “Perfect Motion’. That’s another track that I’ve been playing out lately that people seem to be enjoying. I’ll be really interested to see what they come up with next.

CGNY: You’ve played in Miami before?

JT: I’ve played once before. Last year we had the Anjunabeats party which was great and this year we’ve had a change of venue. So we’ve moved to the Ice Palace.

CGNY: What’s next for you?

JT: After this compilation and tours are done, the next thing is my second album which I’m getting pretty close to finishing at the moment and we’re looking to release that mid year.

CGNY: If you weren’t djing’ – what career do you think you would’ve followed?

JT: Probably something in science – something to do with space or astronomy because I love space and the stars and the universe and so forth.

You can preview the 'Anjunadeep: 03' album here: http://anjunadeep.com/anjunadeep-03-mixed-by-jaytech-and-james-grant/

*The only U.S. event - 'Anjunadeep:03' album launch party will take place at Anjunabeats in Miami @ Ice Palace, Miami on March 24th