Into The Millennium

06/02/1999 7:00 PM, LAUNCH
Lily Moayeri

Jonah Sharp, a.k.a. Spacetime Continuum, has caught a serious case of millennium fever. "The end of the century means trying to create something that hasn't been attempted before," he says. "Doing techno beats or trip-hop or genres that have been categorized--everyone has tried the same thing. I wanted to put in the effort to go the extra step."

For the Scottish-born Sharp, going the extra step meant a lot of work. Last year, he recorded an entire album using the same sample-dominated approach he used for his last release, 1996's Emit Ecaps, before he realized he wasn't happy with it and scrapped the whole thing. Soon thereafter, he traveled to the U.K., where he recorded some bits and pieces with various live musicians--primarily a saxophone player and a few percussionists. Then he brought the tapes back to his current place of residence in the San Francisco Bay Area and put the individual parts together in his home studio. The result of all this experimentation is Spacetime Continuum's third full-length album, Double Fine Zone, a laid-back collection of jazz-tinged tunes that push the bounds of electronic music.

The idea of combining live and digital elements has been on Sharp's mind for a while, stemming partly from his background as a session drummer. Now, in an extension of Double Fine Zone's recording process, he's expanded his live show to incorporate live musicians. "I've got to get away from standing hunched over a sampler. It's boring to watch: techno-boy and his rave machine," he admits. "Right now it's very spur-of-the-moment, improvisational, with as much room for spontaneity as possible."

Remixing all the songs live as well as using brand-new tracks expressly written for the show, Sharp throws in snippets of old material to create an unexpected presentation. He uses a similar method when he's DJing, augmenting the turntables with a sampler. "I'm into playing the side room at the moment, the weird room, playing jazz and bits of Herbie Hancock," he chuckles. "I don't want to have to worry about people wanting me to play again. I've done loads of main dance floor gigs, thrashing it out. At the side room we still move the floor, it's just not full-on. I get to play all the stuff that you don't dare to play in the main room. It's still dance music, just real left-field stuff."

According to Sharp, this kind of music is all too rarely found in California. He's disappointed with the lack of musical identity on the West Coast dance scene, with the way it so obviously draws its influences from the sounds coming out of Detroit. One of the few recent contenders attempting a truly distinctive San Francisco sound is Sharp's own label, Reflective, which has been on hiatus for the last two years. But that's about to change--the label will start up again later this year with the release of a mini-album from Sharp. If all goes as planned, Reflective will continue where it left off, featuring the brightest in futuristic downtempo electronic experimentation.