The Martlet

Experimental hip-hop producer Jules Chaz is proud of Toppings, his debut album. And so he should be.

The local artist’s music is refreshingly original, engrossing and delicious. Jules, a professional jazz percussionist turned producer, expertly deploys a stunning array of samples to craft tunes that are sometimes soulful and jazzy, sometimes dirty and dubby, sometimes ambient and psychedelic, but always raw, intelligent and worth listening to carefully.

“I just wanted to make stuff that I would want to listen to,” said Jules.

Jules’s impressive studio – tucked away in Victoria’s industrial quarter, North-East of the Bay St. Bridge – has an array of mixing boards, a Rhodes piano, Hammond organs, vibraphones, a drum kit, turntables, stacks of vinyl, CDJs, effects boxes, and various speakers and amps. On the walls arealbum covers, vintage Bollywood movie posters and a row of headphones on hooks. Pan pipes lie on the coffee table, and a Texas Instruments Speak & Spell, circa 1980, sits on a stool.

Jules, 31, is soft-spoken, friendly, mellow and thoughtful- but still a bit dazed from the previous night’s jam session that last until 8 a.m.

Music has been part of Jules’s life from day one. His parents were in a band together in which his mother sang and his father played drums. As a toddler, Jules jammed on a mini drum kit. From Winnipeg, his family moved around Canada before landing in Victoria. In his early teens, Jules enrolled in Esquimalt High School’s renowned jazz music program.

While Jules played mostly drums and vibraphones, he “had to learn piano, and learn theory, anything to do with Jazz.”

After graduating, he went straight to work as a professional percussionist, freelancing and playing in various bands. He currently drums in MC Kia Kidari’s soul/hip-hop ensemble.

Jules’s list of musical influences is hefty and varied.

“To be able to be a professional musician I’ve had to listen to every style of music as much as possible – all the blues and the bossa and the reggae and the Cuban and the jazz,” he said. “I’ve listened to hundreds of thousands of albums.”

He says that, in terms of producing, he’s been most influenced by dub music.

“Before I had what I have now, I made reggae in an old-school studio with the reel-to-reel, the big mixing board, the real reverb box, and all that. It was hands-on, no computers, all tape and analog,” Jules explained.

“I played all the instruments. That’s how I first got into multitracking, or recording, putting layers of my own stuff. So I made dub, and that’s the first stuff that I made, straight-up kind of 70s style roots dub. You know, trying to get an authentic kind of sound.”

Jules’s sound has stayed authentic and remarkably original with his move into experimental hip hop. The songs on Toppings are not ‘beats,’ but complex, carefullycrafted compositions that convey Jules’s talent as a jazz percussionist, dub technician, sampling guru and expert mixer.

“Yes I Do,” samples bossa nova singer Astrud Gilberto and features Danuel Tate of Cobblestone Jazz on the Rhodes piano and vocorder, and the slow breakbeat and late hi-hats make your shoulders shake.

“93 Million Miles” is the hip hop hit of the album. Jules drums a classic, slow hip hop break, and matches a funky, dubby bass line with electro synths to form an irresistibly groovy melody.

A bumping, four-on-the-floor bass kick and deep, swampy bass line drive “Could Happen,” with long, dirty, chunky hi-hats hissing over the slick diction of MC Ishkan, who Jules calls“one of the best rappers on the West Coast.”

Reggae-driven “Whipits” samples a melody from the Ethiopians’ song “the Whip,” laying it over potent kicks and raspy hi-hats, while a delayed woodblock punctuates the song with submarine sonar pings.

“I’m a huge reggae fan,” said Jules. “I studied reggae for years and got into that pretty big time. And now I’ve made this stuff, but I like to have the reggae influence in there.”

Jules’s vibraphone skills shine in “Realaxing,” a jazzy, dubby, headbobbing trip-hop tune.

In “Winterslice,” spacey 70s synths float over a dark, techy, dubsteppy bass line.

Jules does not use a computer or a sequencer to make his music. He mixes his songs live on a Yamaha AW1600 Professional Audio Workstation. He often adds the bass kicks, hi-hats, claps and snares to his songs last – and live – to ensure a raw, human, “wobbly” and “slinky” feel.

“It’s kind of jazzy,” he said. “And it’s very non-computer style. Having a background in music and theory and rhythm helps me to do that.” Sometimes he will sample eight bars of a recording of himself playing drums, and then loop the sample to use in his tracks but he’ll keep the sample long enough to retain the raw, non-loopy rhythm.

While his studio is equipped with Hammond organs and Rhodes pianos, Jules’s favourite keyboard is an old Radio Shack version of the Mini-Moog.

“It’s analog and it’s killin’,” said Jules. “It’s got lots of line noise and it’s really dirty when you play. So I get a lot of bass off of there.”

Jules has a passion for sampling. To get a gritty, crackling sound, he used a highly sensitive mic to record himself crumpling plastic candy wrappers. For a shaker sound, he recorded a rice cracker container. He even sampled a decade-old recording of a gig he and Danuel Tate played at Steamers Pub. Toppings also features samples of Dire Straits, Hall & Oates, and the robotic voice of the Speak & Spell, among literally hundreds of others.

Old Bollywood movies are ideal for sampling, thanks to the gritty sound and the structure of their musical scores, said Jules.

“I sample a lot of Bollywood movies. I record them all onto VHS, so when I put them into the box to record and sample, they’re already analog and dirty. Plus they’re all from the 60s and 70s, so they already sound kind of old and shitty.

“What’s cool about Bollywood music is they’ll have these breakdowns, bass for a bar, horns for a bar, percussion for a bar - from a sampler’s point-of-view, that’s perfect. You can make a whole new tune out of sounds that are separated already.”

Jules also loves to sample Japanese composer Isao Tomita.

“He did classical music, but on analog keyboards, so it’s perfect to sample from,” said Jules.

He adds that most of the samples he uses are not random or whimsical, but, rather, very personal.

“It’s all from music that’s actually a part of my life, that at one time was played a lot. Each tune is some little weird memory.”

Toppings comes out September 14 on Wagon Repair Records.