Boxhanging: jozif

Boxhanging is back! First up, James takes on London-based DJ and producer jozif, whose profile has notably flourished over the last five years.

Venturing into production in 2005, a few years of experience under his belt London’s jozif burst out into the house scene with multiple releases and a slew of high quality remixes.

Remixes in the shape of Subb-An  & Shelton’s “It’s Time” and, especially for me, Leeds based Death On The Balcony’s “My Place” (a great little release in itself) are but the tip of the iceberg. Also on his plate has been a project with Craig Richards entitled “Fist or Finger”. It’s a vinyl-only label project wthat sees Richards interpreting tracks of jozif’s including, “Beats In Space”, “Room 3″ and “Brick Jane” which is set for release on 7th February and is limited to three hundred copies. Best to get the order in soon, as the clip of “Brick Jane” (listen here) is sounding as top notch as anything he has produced of late.

Arguably what really helped catapult him into the limelight was the release of an EP through New York’s persistently excellent Wolf + Lamb record label which blew up in a big way with the release the Wolf + Lamb’s artist album alongside the global explosion of the exceptionally talented Nicolas Jaar. With W+L highlighted as one of the top labels of 2010 in numerous end of year lists, getting that year underway early with the release of jozif’s “Chicago EP” helped propel both label and artist over the proceeding months.

2011 has already seen the release of his wonderful “Sunrise” EP on Infine Music, a four track EP full of depth and warmth. Nine-minute tracks are full of creativity, bending and morphing to keep the listener intrigued yet never vacating from a core aesthetic of deep bass and lush melodies with a hint of minimalism skittering in and out. On top of this, throw in support from the likes of Andrew Weatherall, the aforementioned Craig Richards and Paul Woolford and I don’t think many will argue that 2011 has the potential to be even more special for jozif and, as such, us.

- James Hoste

Catch jozif at some of these places:

28th Jan – Back to Front – Manchester
29th Jan – Modern Amusement – Leeds (w/ Modeselektor, Tyrant and Joy Orbison)
4th Feb – Time Out presents Future Stars of 2011 – London
4th Feb – Funkyzeit w/ Deniz Kurtel live
26th Feb – lo*kee, Renate – Berlin
26th Mar – Get Lost @ WMC