Nick Jackolson – ‘Thieves’ EP
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Nick Jackolson is the collaboration between two Brighton roommates, Birkwin Jersey and J Biscuits. These two friends (since they were nine years old) have joined forces before (including a track called “Sunrised“ on the last Birkwin Jersey EP out on Absent Fever), but now they set forth into a longer project—the Thieves EP out now on the newly formed Brighton label One Eye Wide. Graeme (Birkwin Jersey) was kind enough to give us a bit more insight on the project:
Well basically, me and James (J Biscuits) have known each other since we were little and have been making music together for years over various different projects and genres. The latest incarnation of this is Nick Jackolson. We are housemates so collaborating is pretty convinent—it normally starts by JB starting some sort of beat, then handing it over to me to add instrumentation to, and then we keep going back and forth, adding and arranging parts until it is finished (although sometimes we mix it up the other way).
The track “Gary Mush” was made as a birthday present for a friend of ours (unsuprisingly his name is Gary!) and features samples from the film Ticker, (which is one of the most hilarious films: Hopper, Sizemore, Segal, and looks like it was made in one afternoon as a joke, with a limited budget so terrible effects and a script that is so bad it sounds in parts like it’s improvised!)
Personally, I’ve found it a lot of fun working on more electronic tracks (as opposed to my Birkwin things which tend to be more acoustic based), and also to be making music with someone else is great. Quite often I’ll find a memory stick and a note saying there are some stems on it, and most of the time it is something that I get excited by straight away and start building things around it.
I find beat-making one of the most frustrating parts, so to be able to work with someone who can make such consistently great beats is amazing. It also brings out other ideas that I wouldn’t necessarily have thought of, so if I give him some melody lines and the beat that goes over it is different to how I imagined it, it can spark off different ideas and send it in a whole new direction—it makes for a really nice organic process.
The label that is releasing it is One Eye Wide records, which is a newly formed label, and ‘Thieves’ is their first release. It was formed by someone we knew from Brighton as a promoter, putting on some amazing shows in town, and now that has bloomed into OEW, and they have some amazing releases planned over the next six months!
All being good we should hopefully have a full length on the way soon, with a working title of “Chased by Goats or Ghosts”.
Also, James has recently found a love for making tie-dye t-shirts, so we are considering offering Jackolson merch in the future. Just think—tie-dye, a picture of a cat, some sort of Nick Jackolson scrawl—who wouldn’t want one!?!
