Jet Jaguar
members
- Michael Upton: electronics, production
blurb
Jet Jaguar is the name I record my solo material under. I came up with it on the spot when the promoter of my first gig told me I shouldn't use my own name. It's your fault, Lily!
I like rhythm, I like textures, I love space.
I love club music that's slow and cruising; modern r&b, old funk, music with "soul".
Then I also love beatless scraping and burbling that has nothing to do with dancing or singing about who you love.
I try to find some kind of middle ground without losing the heat and churning out lukewarm cafe tunes. Fingers crossed, eh?
releases
There have been 3 Jet Jaguar CDs so far, as well as a vinyl EP and a free digital EP. You can hear a few tracks on the downloads page.
The first CD was released via Involve Records 
at the end of 1999. It was essentially a collection of whatever material I had finished that I thought was good enough to put together, and in that sense is probably the most varied release I've done.
In early 2003 Capital Recordings 
released my second full length. This one, 'Think About It Later', was deliberately focused on grooves and head nodding vibes and less of the bleepy stuff. There's also a 12" of 4 of the most friendly numbers available for DJs and vinyl afficionados. It was nominated for Best Electronic Release of 2003 at the bNet Music Awards, an annual awards ceremony in New Zealand.
In December 2003 Involve Records released a third CD, 'Jet Jaguar is Love'. A lot of material on 'Is Love' actually predates 'Think About It Later', but still holds up well (if I do say so myself). The focus is very much on atmospheres and lushness. All that said, a producer once asked me if he could put a diva on one of these tracks and make an R&B hit, so it's not toooooooooo snoozy!
In February 2008 net-label Monotonik released a free EP called 'Biddy Bids' . It's made up of tracks recorded in 2007, while living in Tokyo. Lots of ambient samples and direct references to the atmos of Japanese big city living.
There are also Jet Jaguar tracks on a whole bunch of compilations. Oh, and I'm a bit of a remix whore. Check out the discography for the full run down.
downloads
As well as tracks from each album, there are some exclusive MP3s of Jet Jaguar tracks and remixes on the downloads page.
Glen Atkins has kindly made available his video for my tune 'Now Serving'. You can download it as a QuickTime movie file, but it is 17.3 megabytes in size, so it's a bit hefty if you're one of those happy New Zealanders using dial-up. Anyway, there's always Youtube, eh?
