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Josh Wink - Going Bananas

Author: Elliot Shields
Monday, February 2, 2009

Josh Wink – the mastermind behind the classic track Higher State of Consciousness – has a new album out and a plan to change you outlook on music.

You’ve said the title of your new album When A Banana Was Just A Banana is to remind us of the time when “music was just music”, without the stigmas now attached to certain genres or artists or fans. Do you think there is still hope for that ideology-
I don’t mind there being different genres and subgenres of music. I think as humans we are creatures that feel that we need to belong so we all have to like a certain thing or belong to a certain place to identify with ourselves and people, so that’s not necessarily the problem. I think there is a problem with people who have a problem with that, like people who say they only like soulful house but they don’t like tech-house or they only like minimal they don’t like deep house – and it happens in any genre I’ve noticed – and with this album I want to let people know that music is just music and we need to stop being so critical and just appreciate it for what it is.

Are there any artists lined up for official remixes yet- Any you’d love to have on board-
So far besides the Stay Out All Night record that came out last year and having Todd Terrje and Harry Romero do remixes of that, Counter Clock 319 is the new release and we had Chris Liebing doing an edit, a rework of that track. I sent it to him as just something to play and the next morning he sent me a file back with ideas for a re-edit and we talked about it and were able to say “Hey, let’s do something here, let’s put something out on Ovum that’s your work, your interpretation of my music.” For the rest of the album, that’s a touchy subject for me, right before Christmas I had a 500gb hard drive completely blow out on me and I lost six years of photos and over ten years of music files, samples, sequences and I was in the midst of backing everything up and the hard drive just died, so I think I pretty much lost everything including the stems and bits and parts from my album, which is killing me, but I’m really trying to look at it like a positive thing, like this was meant to happen for a reason and how can I start over and start fresh and start new. The only track parts I kind of have are the parts for Jus Right, I don’t have every stem but maybe just enough to get out there and do remixes for it, but so far if someone wants to remix it just dealing with the samples that are on the actual record then that is something I’ll have to entertain.

Speaking of Jus Right, you’ve been quoted as saying the track reminds you of the French disco-house sound of the ’80s. With disco making a comeback, especially in France, do you have high hopes for the track- Noting that it’s not what a lot of your fans would expect.
We weren’t originally going to put Jus Right on the album just because, as your question suggests, not all of my fans would expect it. But if they are a true Josh Wink fan I think they’ll realise I’m capable of having different sounds.

The original is 17 minutes [long] and I just love the groove so much that I wanted it to keep going on, and for the album I edited it down to just over ten minutes – for me it just grooves perfectly and I get a feeling of a French disco feel to it. I mean I’m born in Philadelphia where disco began, but when I was listening to music when I was five or six or seven years old it was never disco music and it never really influenced me until I became a teenager and I bought all different kinds of records as a DJ and began to appreciate the whole Philadelphia sound – the Gamble and Huff sound – and I’m actually very happy that journalists are finding this track one of their favourites on the album.

WHO: Josh Wink
WHAT:  When A Banana Was Just A Banana through Ovum Recordings
WHEN: February
MORE: ovum-rec.com

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