James Zabiela @ Marquee NY Review

Marquee NY continued its notable Friday line-up of underground stars with James Zabiela, supported by Sleepy&Boo (Basic NYC). Zabiela, known for his intricate use of technology and a penchant for diverse sets, brought it all for Marquee and New York City.

Sleepy&Boo played a great opening set, getting the crowd singing in tune with a chic remix of “Sweet Nothing,” among others, and setting up the crowd for what would be a very unexpected performance by the headliner. Setting up all his “toys” took a little while, but James finally hit the decks after 1am. In just under three hours, he played everything from techno to house to drum & bass, including a rendition of his fellow Brits, Disclosure’s, “White Noise.” The frequent change of pace turned a few heads and many people looked to each other with wide eyes and mouthed, “wow.”

Just as his set came to a close, James hopped down from the stage into the crowd, holding up one of his more recognizable gadgets – the handy Apple iPad. He let everyone around him press the buttons on the screen and, literally, the audience made the music coming out of the speakers!

After his incredible set, I got a chance to chat with James just before he left the club to continue his tour. He had tweeted earlier that day about how it had been a while since he performed in New York and how excited he was. When asked about that, he replied, “Yeah, the last time I was in New York was back in October and I played a week night. This was my first time playing a weekend, my first time at Marquee, and it was amazing. It was fun.” He noticed his shirt was dirty… from all the sweating from jumping up and down all night: a good night indeed.

James Zabiela is well known for his knowledge and use of technology so naturally, I asked him about all the equipment he was using and experimenting with. He had worked with Pioneer to develop the CDJ 2000 and the new 900 firmware, but admitted that because of all the touring, he had no time to test out the equipment, and was the reason behind why the CDJs kept crashing during the course of the night. Of course, I assured him that his set was so intoxicating that nobody even noticed. As far as new equipment, he confessed he wasn’t at liberty to go into detail, however, he smiled and promised that there were plenty of interesting things constantly coming from the technology department in electronic music.

Back to music, I had to ask where James saw himself in dance music. It’s difficult to categorize him with a certain genre because his style varies so much. He laughed at this, knowing full well of this characteristic, “It sounds cliché but I like to take the audience on a journey. If I play the same genre for an hour, I get bored.” From there, I asked him what his favorite tracks and labels were at the moment to which he mentioned, “I really like the Benjamin Damage 010x track, which I played tonight, on the 50 weapons label” and he pointed at his shirt, which read “50 WEAPONS.” Lastly, I asked him about any new music. James is currently working on his Born Electric label, which houses his track, “The Healing,” and its remixes. Some remixes are still waiting to be released but he did say he got to feel some of them out with a crowd, for the first time: that night at Marquee.