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Jewelz - Balls to the Wall

Author: Clare Dickins
Thursday, July 7, 2005
Jewelz has balls - and she likes to show them too. "As another DJ I know quite well, [Nick] Compound said, it's 'balls to the wall'," she says laughing, trying to describe the Live at Big Bass compilation she mixed with Bass Station King Kong Jason Midro.

So you like to grab the dancefloor by the testicles- "Very much so. But I wouldn't call it 'grab them by their testicles', I would more call it 'grab them by their arses' - and drag them along the floor! It's not something you'd want to be listening to as you're trying to drift off to sleep - not unless you're going to do some fisting in your bed! " [laughs]

Jewelz has never been one to mince her words. She ain't the fluffy anthemic type, either. As many would attest to, in the nine years she's been Djing her performances have always embodied a kind of indefinable energy and charm that few have been able to replicate.

Not surprisingly, the Live at Big Bass CD sees the vinyl-stroker in typical genre-jumping form. While she may have a fondness for hard trance, pigeonholing herself isn't part of Jewelz's agenda. From the driving proggy acid of Solar 7's Hard Spectrum, to Fusion 808's groove-ridden tech gem Dance and Kenji Ogura featuring Melanie Di Tria's nasty 303 classic, Kreissage, the CD is a belting 74-minute snapshot of all the sounds that are inspiring Jewelz at present. "Kenji Ogura - that's like phwwoar!" she exclaims excitedly. "I've resurrected that track quite a few times; it stays in the box for a very long time and then goes out for a couple of months and then goes back into the box again. I love my rare cut-like-a-blade copy, it's bloody nice! I love the wicked guitar in the Fusion 808 track - it's so filthy and yum!

"Those tracks I just mentioned all really capture where I like my music, which somebody actually classified as 'really hard progressive'. In a way, they kind of all move within themselves, but there isn't really a complete change unless you listen to the tunes from start to finish. It's only then that you're able to hear the progression in the tune, whereas if you just walk in half way through it, you wouldn't really notice it I guess; it's all hard, it's all driving and it's all fat. They sound simple, but they're really quite complex tunes," she explains.

Jewelz's progressive-minded connection with music isn't surprising when you consider she's been a longtime fan of the sound. In 2002, she ran the now-defunct progressive dayclub Therapy, and is still known to break out her old Lemon 8 records at house parties. "I do love prog and I do love hard trance and I do love acid, so I guess you could say the CD is a combination of it all - but probably a very distorted version of it," she says.

One thing Jewelz is also rather fond of is smut. For these reasons, it seemed appropriate to begin the CD with a particularly cheeky acapella, in which Jewelz reveals a strong liking for teasing and then rewarding punters (or is that men-) with Hard driving bass.

So where did all this come from- "It originally started off as an idea for a guy called Michiel Overeem [aka Marzz, Innergy] who's from a label called Detox in the Netherlands. He wanted some Aussie chicks to do some vocals for a live set he was doing and also to possibly use for a release on his label. A friend and I ended up getting into the studio and having a big girly discussion and, after a little bit of teasing, lots of mucking around and lots of laughter, we ended up with this dialogue. We weren't expecting anything out of it, but after putting it together and editing...yeah!" she says breaking into laughter.

"I guess you can interpret it in any way you want. I think it's a brilliant opener to what we're all about - I guess we've all got a bit of smut in the back of our minds."

Having been a firm favourite with punters for close to a decade, it has surprised many that Live at Big Bass is Jewelz's first major nationally released CD compilation. She began her career in Syd
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