When the RA mafia caught up with Jimpster, he was in full party recovery mode. “My son’s birthday. He just turned one. We had a kids party yesterday.” Nevertheless, he’s all prepared – his list is sorted, he’d been browsing RA to prepare for our arrival. “Hey, my MySpace address is wrong on RA. Could you fix that?”

London DJ and producer Jimpster has been DJing and running house label Freerange Records for over a decade. His real name is actually Jamie Odell, and he sometimes goes by the moniker Audiomontage. So why all these names, Jamie? Is it a tax thing? “Basically they are all exactly the same,” says Jimpster. “Originally the plan was to have Audiomontage as more of a dancefloor thing and Jimpster as more of a downtempo thing, but it just didn't seem to work out like that because people wanted Jimpster remixes.”

Jimpster also plays keys for the live outfit The Bays. Chances are if you haven’t been to one of their gigs, you wouldn’t have heard their music – The Bays don’t make records, they don’t have songs, and they don’t even rehearse – it’s a strictly live and improvised project. You must need a lot of skills to make it up as you go along, so tell us about your musical background, Jamie. “Both my parents are musicians. My dad is a drummer. He used to get hold of a lot of drum machines when they just started making the TR-808 and the 909, and he used to get to try them out. I remember I started learning how to program drum machines even when I was about nine or ten. Later on I went to college and learnt jazz.” Does Jimpster find that musical background helpful? “Yes, but if anything, my favourite producers tend to be total non-musicians. I really value that I've got the background, but half the time I try and turn it off when I'm doing stuff. When you think back to early days of house music, not many of the producers had a really strong musical education.”

But we’ve come to talk about records. The $64,000 question: Is Jimpster is a vinyl purist in 2007? “I haven’t bought any vinyl for months now,” says Jimpster proudly. “I’m pretty much kind of winding it down on that front. I used to collect everything on vinyl, especially jazz and fusion stuff when I was at college. But it’s just taking up space now. I never thought that I would sort of fall out of love with vinyl, but at the moment I’m just really enjoying playing from CD. The machines are so good now that I don’t feel I’m actually missing anything not playing off Technics.” We ask Jimpster to think of a downside to CDs. “Well, the thing that gets on my nerves is the looking in the pouch thing. You can't find stuff half the time, especially when you get a bit pissed.”

So you don’t buy vinyl at all? “There are always a few things in record shops that you know you’re not going to be able to download anywhere so I buy those and put them straight onto CD. To be honest, I think I'm just going to put the whole lot into storage.”

Jimpster’s crate-digging days might be behind him, but aside from being inundated with music at Freerange, he gets his music tips from an unlikely source: the wireless. “I try and listen to radio as much as I can,” explains Jimpster. “Every now and then I check Gilles show. I even listen to Norman Jay because he does his show on Sunday early evening in London. It's mainly kind of old soul and funk stuff, but I like the way he puts his show together, he always digs out a few rare bits that you don't always come across. Norman Jay is always known for breaking tracks in some respects.”

Onto the music.

Hang Around (Wahoo & Karizma remixes)

Ben Westbeech - Hang Around (Wahoo Mix) [Brownswood]

Jimpster: "This is the best new thing I’ve been sent recently. You hardly ever get sent stuff that you end up like really loving, so when something comes through the post that is actually really good, you always get doubly excited. Brownswood is Gilles Peterson’s label. About six months ago there was an Osunlade remix of this, which was amazing, and I was playing that for a few months. This new one is a remix by Wahoo, which is Dixon and Georg Levin. Basically anything that Dixon’s involved with I’m always really impressed with. His label Innervisions is amazing and I’ve always been a fan of his DJing as well. He always just keeps it as deep as possible but really funky. This remix is just really, really deep and it’s got vocals on it – it works really well on the dancefloor and people respond to it. Plus it’s got electronic sounds that make it sound really fresh at the moment. This is going to be quite a big one in my box I reckon." MySpace: Ben Westbeech – Hang Around (Wahoo Mix)

Troydon – Jump Start EP

Troydon - Sway The Feel [Phonoshuffle]

Jimpster: "Troydon's done a couple of things for Freerange, and he's just starting to do some really nice stuff. He's started up his own label called Phonoshuffle and this is his first EP. He's actually a South African guy, but he's been living in Brooklyn. I guess he’s the US or South African equivalent of Dave Taylor – very much on that jackin', weird vibe, but not really too fidgety. He's done a lot of stuff on Om. He's a bit like Justin Martin and Claude VonStroke. They're getting quite hyped at the moment and I think he'll be quite close behind them. You can play his stuff if you're trying to push things in a tougher direction and this drops really well. It's a four-track EP, but 'Sway the Feel' is the main track and it's got just the right balance for me. It's quite soulful and jackin' but it's still really quite edgy, and it sounds very current. I usually like jackin', more old school, acidy stuff but not when it gets too fidgety. Like Trevor Loveys and Speakerjunk, that's going a bit too far in that direction for me. I try to keep it deeper. The thing I like about Troydon is that he keeps things real deep and soulful, but with just a hint of that sound." MySpace: Troydon – Sway That Feel

Karizma - Mind Of Its Own

Karizma - Twyst This [R2]

Jimpster: "Everyone knows Karizma for his old school Basement Boys stuff, but it seems like he's reinvented himself a little bit. All of a sudden he's been doing really mad, beautiful deep house. He had a track called 'Tech This Out' that people like Dennis Ferrer liked, and suddenly everyone was talking about Karizma. It was a deep, really funky sort of new US sound. This track is from his forthcoming album and it’s actually a really mad broken beat track. I never really play broken beat stuff, but this tears the roof off. If you just drop one or two into a house set, I find it breaks things up really nicely. I'm careful about which ones I choose to play though, but this one is more like a house track with slightly, weird, off-kilter beats. I first heard it on Gilles Peterson's show, and then I managed to get a copy off Karizma."

Stereotyp – Keepin’ Me (Remix)

Stereotyp – Keepin’ Me (Fauna Flash Remix) - [G-Stone Recordings]

Jimpster: "This is a little bit similar to the Wahoo mix in that it's really, really deep and it's got this amazing vocal. I've been playing it the last six weeks, and every time I play it, people just respond really amazingly. It’s just got proper builds and breakdowns and everything just seems to be in the right place. The Fauna Flash guys have been doing it for years so they really know how to get a good sound. It’s on a few of my mixes which have just been posted from my club gigs, and loads of people have emailed me saying, "What's that track?" It seems like the only track that they're interested in is this one! It's so striking - it’s basically just a kick drum, loads of synths and a vocal. The vocal really stands out so it's good at grabbing people's attention early on. I always try and keep it deep without playing huge tunes, but at the same time you want something that will also grab everybody's attention. So this is a good one for that."

Palm Skin Productions - Fall Away [Freerange]

Jimpster: "Palm Skin is the other keyboard player with The Bays so he's a good friend and we obviously travel a lot together. We also often DJ together as The Bays Sound System. But he's just done this new EP for Freerange which is really lovely. It reminds me of Pepe Braddock's 'Deep Burnt' because it's got really lovely strings in it – proper sampled up live strings. The EP has also got a remix by Johnny Fiasco on it, which is much more of a Chicago house thing. But my favourite is the original because it just keeps things really moody and deep." MySpace: Palm Skin Productions – Fall Away

Funk D'Void & Phil Kieran - White Light [Soma]

Jimpster: "This is a really beautiful track. I just got this a few days ago so I haven't played it out. Obviously I really love Funk D'Void and I love his new Francois Dubois stuff. It's really blissed out. It has beautiful chords. It's one of the most beautiful and deep sort of techno tracks I've heard in ages. I do like Soma but a lot of their stuff tends to be too techno for me. Lars and Phil have been doing some weird stuff like 'White Lice'. This is the first thing they've done that's kind of mellower, but the rest of it is all really freaky minimal techno that's quite tough as well. I think you could play this at the end of the night, and the whole place would probably just end up crying." MySpace: Funk D'Void & Phil Kieran - White Light

Justin Martin - Sad Piano (Jimpster Remix) [Buzzin' Fly]

Jimpster: "Ben Watt asked me to do this remix even though it had already had the amazing Charles Webster one. He wanted me to do something much more electronic sounding to go with the direction of Buzzin' Fly. The A-side of this EP is the Dennis Ferrer re-edit of one of Ben's old tunes, which was obviously much more of a proper US house kind of thing. I’m really pleased with the way my remix came out because I don't normally do very electronic stuff. It's usually a bit more organic sounding. I actually did it in just one day, which is really unusual for me. It came together really quickly, which I think is a really good sign, because a lot of the producers that I know that make tracks really quickly are all the ones that have a really good vibe to them and tend not to get bogged down in all the details. Sometimes you can sense that the energy is there already rather than fluffing around trying to fill things in to make up for a lack of ideas." MySpace: Justin Martin - Sad Piano (Jimpster Remix)

2020 Soundsystem - High (Llorca Remix) [2020 Vision]

Jimpster: "Llorca is one of those guys that I listened to for ages when he was doing stuff on F-Comm. I've not heard any bits of his for a while now, or he hasn't done anything that I've noticed. But this is amazing. It’s another one that just fits really well with the stuff that I'm playing at the moment - really deep but a little bit discoey and quite electronic as well. It's a bit Spirit Catchery, but it's not as cheesy. They get a bit sickly sweet sometimes. I love those guys - they do stuff for Freerange under the Only Freak name - but I only play one of their things every other gig. Whereas this Llorca thing is really nice and deep." MySpace: 2020 Soundsystem – High (Llorca Remix)

Lovebirds - Modern Stalking EP

Lovebirds – Behind You [Winding Roads]

Jimpster: "This is on another UK label that are doing similar stuff to us. They're based in Nottingham, where Charles Webster, Atjazz, Rhythm Plate and a lot of the DRY Crew hang out. This EP is actually done by one half of Knee Deep, those German guys who normally do more funky house stuff. This is a slowed down disco cut-up thing – a bit like Moodymann or Theo Parrish but more accessible. If you imagined the cheesy, mainstream Knee Deep sound mixed with Moodymann – it’s somewhere in between that. It's also around about 110 BPMs so it's really nice to start off the night with. It's disco loop type stuff, and I really like those kinds of tracks because they set a mood. There's not too much going on – these are just really good tool tracks. My favourite track on the EP is 'Behind You', which reminds me a little bit of Switch. It's not at all jackin' or in yer face, but the way he's using the loops, it reminds me a bit of Dave's stuff.” MySpace: Lovebirds – Behind You

Black Joy - Untitled (Original/Kerri Chandler/Stefan Goldmann/Solid Groove Mixes)

Black Joy - Untitled (Original/Kerri Chandler/Stefan Goldmann/Solid Groove Mixes)

Black Joy - Untitled (Stefan Goldmann/Kerri Chandler mixes) [Freerange]

Jimpster: "The Stefan Goldmann mix is really amazing. It hardly does anything. It's pure minimal, and the production on it is amazing – just so crisp. I played it once at Club 11 in Amsterdam, which is quite big. It fits about 750 people, but it's a proper deep house club. It just went down amazingly well. You probably couldn’t get away with it in your average club. I've been following Goldmann since his stuff on Loungin' and Front Room, Jesse Rose's old label. But obviously the 'Sleepy Hollow' track blew everything up, and I absolutely loved that, so I thought “I've got to get him for a remix.” We wanted to do something really special with this because the original is one of my all-time favourite house tracks. It’s just so deep. I've been playing it pretty much every set for the last few years. It has hardly ever been licensed and not many people seemed to know it that well so we thought it deserved a re-release. And so obviously to do it justice we needed some decent remixes. Kerry's mix is brilliant because he's done something totally different to the original. It's much more like his baritone sound." MySpace: Black Joy - Untitled