Lotus Magazine was a pop cultural blip, a publication that catered to a niche of a subculture. Independently published from 1996 – 2002, Lotus served the West Coast's underground rave community. It was a free magazine, half electronica rag, half semi-spiritual/environmentalist youth outreach project. This online archive presents a sliver of the material published in the magazine during its six years of bi-monthly publication. Some of the content is still relevant, and some of it's just silly. All of it's very, very earnest. Enjoy! – Jacob London: Confusion On The Dancefloor, Fall 1999
“I’m not feeling good about carrying around a bunch of expensive gear when there are going to be guaranteed riots in the streets,” claim Jacob London of their upcoming New Year’s eve 1999 performance. “When we are making tracks, we gauge them on how bad of a trip we think somebody would experience if they were really high on the dancefloor,” schemes Dave. The two playful mad scientists responsible for Jacob London’s dark minimal tech-house grooves are not out to hurt anyone, though. Both of them admit that inspiring people to dance is the most important goal of their music…But if there aren’t riots in the streets already on New Year’s, there may be after Jacob London is done on stage.
Confusion and mayhem are part of this Seattle duo’s legacy. Jacob London’s members, known only as Bob and Dave, both profess to drawing inspiration from such artists as LFO, Coil, Meat Beat Manifesto, and Skinny Puppy. With these industrial influences, Bob and Dave’s desire to simultaneously confuse and excite the dancefloor makes a bit more sense. “I like people to dance, but at the same time, I want them to have a hard time figuring out what they are dancing to,” admits Dave. After seven years of making music, however, Jacob London’s first vinyl outing had dancers knowing exactly what to do--go off!
“Hydrogenated Funk” was co-written by Florida DJ Drazil, and featured a remix by San Francisco legend, DJ Garth. However, those looking for similar sounds on future Jacob London releases won’t find the same funky-filtered disco house sound that made “Hydrogenated Funk” a dancefloor success. Bob and Dave assert that “we never go back, I don’t think we have ever done a remix of an old song. We may use an old sample, but we never try to expand on an idea [by remixing].” In keeping with the foundations of electronic music, Jacob London focus on gaining inspiration from the future while utilizing the past.
The future brings Jacob London fans a new three song EP humorously titled “Chickens Love Trucks.” Currently, the most accurate representation of Jacob London’s sound is the deep and dark roller “Chili Sauce,” on their EP of the same name. You can also find Jacob London remixed by Brian Beck (from Seattle’s 107.7 The End) on the Risk records compilation, The Torchbearers.
It seems that after their many years of making music (with a good portion of those rockin’ local parties with their stunning live PA), Jacob London are ready for some time in the x-ray (ahem, I mean spotlight). As they munched on cold, two-day-old pizza, Bob and Dave rested from their photo shoot (which including pictures of them feeding a candy bar to lawn sculpture), and mused playfully on our questions.
Where do you see
electronic music going in the future?
Dave:
80’s music is
making a huge impact on electronic music right now.
Bob:
That new Richie
Hawtin record on m_nus that is built entirely out of samples from Yello’s “Oh
Yeah.”
Do you hope to
influence the scene?
Bob:
There are small
pockets of the Seattle scene that are really cool…
Dave:
It’s not like
you have a choice of what to do here…there are only a few options.
Bob:
I’m not really
sure where [the Seattle community] is going, but we can sure try to influence
it!
Where do you go to
collect your thoughts?
Dave:
We don’t…
Bob:
We’re too
busy--we just turn the volume up!