Jay Fitz: Songs In The Key Of Life

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Jay Fitz is an electronic music DJ in Tralee, and plays with the Eclectoballs collective in town and further afield, here’s the music  that shaped his musical upbringing… 

Prodigy – Everybody in the Place

Since the age of 12 I have been into electronic music in many different forms. My first musical love was The Prodigy, their first album “Experience” was an album I listened to over and over and even though it’s pretty dated now, I still listen to it. My favourite track from it was “Everybody in the place”.

Leftfield – Sound of Life

Practically everything I listened to back then was dance music by artist and producers such as Leftfield who produced the brilliant “Leftism” album which still sound’s good today.

The Fourth Dimension – Loverman

One of my biggest influences for around that time was the Killarney group The Fourth Dimension who were probably the first people I was aware of making dance music at the time in Ireland.

The fact that they were brothers from Kerry meant a big deal to me and I got to see them on a good few different occasions including the during the festival at the Dome. This is them playing around the same time at Feile 95 in Cork.

Moodymann – Shades of Jae

A bit later when I became old enough to go out, the two clubs had a big influence on me were Sir Henry’s in Cork which since closed its doors, but is still a place I think of a lot.

The other club was Horans. At the time DJ Paudi Cronin ran a night called Fresh and Funky where he played loads of stuff I had never heard. He was responsible for introducing me to music like Daft Punk, Moodymann, Ltj Bukem, Carl Craig and countless others.

The Smiths – There Is a Light That Never Goes Out

As I got older my influences widened considerably and started listening to way more rock, soul, funk e.t.c. Artists ranging from The Beatles, The Cure, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan and The Smiths.

The Four Tops – It’s the Same Old Song

I really enjoyed loads of music from Detroit especially Motown, people like Marvin Gaye, The Temptations and The Four Tops.

Burial – Archangel (Hyperdub 2007)

I still listen to and buy loads of new music, but if I was forced to chose just one album to listen to it would be Burial’s “Untrue”.

The album was up for the Mercury Music prize a few years ago and no-one knew anything about him. No picture even existed of him and he turned down loads of money to do concerts and DJ gigs. To this day even though he is now known he refuses to do any gigs and prefers just to make music.