Photonz head to One Eyed Jack's

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    Thu, Aug 12, 2010, 12:05
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  • The Portugese duo have a new record label in the works.
  • Photonz head to One Eyed Jack's image
  • DJ and production duo Photonz have announced plans for a new record label called One Eyed Jacks. Hailing from Portugal's underground club scene, Photonz, AKA Marco Rodrigues and Miguel Evaristo, have been putting out records since 2006. In terms of style, they've always been hard to pin down: though generally focused on house, Photonz's sound varies greatly from record to record, and usually errs on the side of strangeness. They've released on labels like Dissident, Piston Recordings and Pilooski's Dark & Lovely imprint, but feel that most imprints won't touch what they consider to be their best (and weirdest) material, hence the need for their own platform. Earlier this week, we caught up with Rodriguez via email to get the rest of the scoop.
    Why did you choose the name One Eyed Jack's?   We were just trying to think of names we could love—we knew it was going to be a challenge to sell vinyl in these days so even the name should be something that could motivate us—and Miguel remembered this scene from Twin Peaks, when Audrey Horne tries to get a job at this brothel called One Eyed Jacks and, to convince the "madam" of her skills, she ties a knot on a cherry stem. With her tongue. After that we found all kinds of associations between the name and what we wanted to do, like having the name Jacks on it—referring to early Chi-town house—and One Eyed, which felt like something from early European rave imagery that we always loved. How would you describe the overall sound of the label? Not super-coherent but with a recognizable vibe about it. We hear people saying this a lot about Photonz, that we don't make much sense in between releases but that somehow they can tell it's our music. We really romanticize jakbeat, UK hardcore and Portugese rave circa '94, and at the same time we absolutely love The Neptunes, Actress, Zomby and Tropicalia. We're into psych rock and drone too, and a lot of '90s commercial dance music. It's just our vision of a common bond, in terms of vibe not shape, between all these things. Will One Eyed Jack's mostly be a platform for Photonz releases, or do you plan to release other artists as well? It started as a platform for Photonz releases only, but we are now discovering music we would love to release from other artists that have no label. Let's see what happens. We love the idea of growing a project into a community, but only if it is new flesh and raw artistry.
    The first release on One Eyed Jacks will be Aquarian Ball / Urban Dreams, a DJ-friendly EP rooted in psych rock and Italo disco. Samples of the tunes can be heard over at the duo's MySpace page. Tracklist A. Aquarian Ball B. Urban Dreams One Eyed Jack's will release Aquarian Ball / Urban Dreams on September 13th, 2010.
RA