CELEBRATING 20 years playing live electronic techno and house music, the mighty Saytek delivered his milestone Twenty album just before Christmas on Carl Cox and Christopher Coe's Awesome Soundwave label.
Simply titled Twenty, this collection of ten live tunes is a testament to the skill and musical creativity of Saytek’s output over the years. He continues to deliver amazing live shows across the world and consistently creates compelling tunes entirely live, never tiring from pushing the boundaries of his sound.
Like Carl Cox, Christopher Coe and Awesome Soundwave, I am proud to call Saytek family, a man who I have harmoniously enjoyed an amazing electronic journey with for over a decade with our continuing adventures on our Cubism label.
So I am personally thrilled we were able to welcome my friend and partner in electronic crime, Joseph Keevill to deliver the very first live stream of The Night Bazaar Music Show on Friday 12th January from 8pm (GMT) on The Night Bazaar Mixcloud page.
We have found a fantastic speak easy space in the garden of England where we can be left to our own devices with a finely tuned Bose sound system on Friday nights after work, inviting some of the amazing DJs and producers that we speak to and admire in our SFTW column in The newspaper, here at The Sun Music online, The Night Bazaar and all of our other related channels to join us and stream live. Head HERE to find out more about our tasty venue and hosts for our live stream evenings, our lovely friends at Pomp.
We will be springing these regular Friday night live video streams on you from this space and in the newspaper throughout 2024 alongside The Night Bazaar Music Show's regular audio editions and the enduring Sessions series on our Mixcloud page. Mark Gwinnett will also be joined delivering The Night Bazaar Music Show with his enigmatic pal, the aptly named Fake News.
We caught up with Saytek for a chat ahead his live performance on The Night Bazaar Music Show this Friday night. You can read it below and rewatch the show also.
Your new album, Twenty, just dropped on Awesome Soundwave, your third on the label. How has the album been received?
It's been amazing – lots of great support from various DJs, ranging from legends like Laurent Garnier and Terrence Parker to new-school players like TSHA! It's also received quite a few nice reviews, including a 9/10 in Fazemag Germany. But, as it's an album of live tracks, the best feedback has been coming from the dance floor. I've been touring, jamming these tracks out all over the place – from Costa Rica to Rave The Planet in Berlin, with 300,000 techno heads. Also, at some of my favourite clubs such as Fabric and Sisyphos. The reaction from people has been really great!
It's such a big milestone, marking 20 years as a performing artist. Can you talk us through some highlights from the last twenty years that really changed things up for you?
I think my growth has been quite steady, especially as I've never followed trends. Obviously, some things have really helped me along the way. I've had the support of many amazing artists who have signed me to their labels – people I've always respected. Also, I know a lot of people hate it, but the rise of social media has been very helpful to me! People didn't really understand what a live artist was before; nowadays, people are a lot more aware.
There must be so many changes to how you perform live electronic music with the technology evolving a lot in that time. Tell us about some of the big changes from when you started to where you find yourself now. And how do you go about the process of retiring kit and bringing in new kit to your set up?
Again, it has and it hasn't. I think many revolutionary changes had already happened by the time I started. Hardware and Ableton have always been my tools for performing live, and I was using Ableton from the first version. Since then, it's been an evolution of gear. Much of the hardware today isn't that dissimilar to the stuff from the 90s; it just has better sequencers and more advanced UIs. A lot of hardware is purposely limited to impose that kind of restriction on music-making that breeds creativity. In that sense, it's retro. I am not someone who madly buys a lot of gear; I plan my purchases for quite a while. I milk everything I can out of a bit of gear, but when the creativity wears off, it's time to move on.
You are performing a special live show to launch our live series for The Night Bazaar Music Show this Friday night. What have you got in store for us?
I am looking forward to it very much. I'll be jamming with my machines and just going with the flow!
