Stone's Bro

If you heard Jonti Danilewitz' beats without knowing anything of his background, you'd assume the producer was from LA. His intricate, genre-bending style; a mix of live instrumentation and electronics that jumps between synth-psych and sample-driven hip hop, matches the kind of progressive, eccentric sound that the California beat scene champions. But Danilewitz's a Sydney boy, born and raised in South Africa, and up until a few years ago had never even been to LA. He is, however, the first ever Australian (the first South African Australian, at that) to be signed to progressive LA label Stones Throw Records (home of Madlib, J Dilla, Mayer Hawthorne and Dam Funk) - so LA's a spiritual music home of sorts.

The journey from shy musical teenager to international beatmaker goes thus: in 2008 Danilewitz began putting out some lo-fi broken beats under the name 'Danimals', playing live with first a 404, then a band. After winning a competition judged by Mark Ronson; doors opened for work with a string of names: Ronson, Dinosaur Jr producer John Agnello, Santigold, Sean Lennon, the Dap-Kings. Danilewitz changed his name from 'Danimals' to 'Jonti' after a kids yoghurt company threatened legal action, then in 2011 Danilewitz single-handedly (despite his wicked connections) produced, arranged and recorded his first album Twirligig. The album caught the attention of Peanut Butter Wolf, the head of Stones Throw, who was blown away by young Jonti, and signed him to the Stones Throw roster immediately. (“I made Twirligig in my bedroom,” says a bewildered Danilewitz, “I never dreamt that I would be putting it out on Stones Throw”). Danilewitz moved to LA that year - he lived across the street from Madlib, played heaps of killer gigs with the Stones Throw and Low End fam, and recorded with Jonwayne, and Odd Future Wolfgang's Hodgy Beats. Stones Throw put out a compilation of Danilewitz's older material, the Sine & Moon Mix, that was so well received Danilewitz stretched the effort into a full-length album in early 2012 with extras and new mixes.

That pretty much brings us up to date, except for this: last year in LA, Danilewitz got a pretty important call from Gotye (whom Jonti met seven years ago at a gig in Sydney, pre-Gotye explosion). Despite having a fairly different music style to that of Danilewitz, Gotye asked him to go on a world tour for close to six months; giving Danilewitz the unbelievable opportunity to play hundreds of shows and have his music exposed to thousands of people. The experience, says Danilewitz, was a huge learning curve: “In the beginning it was really rough. There were lots of young girls, families and mothers in the audience. I'm used to performing this weird beat music in clubs, not like… to families! So I think people were kind of confused in the beginning. About five shows in, I was like 'I have no idea how to make this better, what do I do?'. Then I decided I had to not worry about it, and just try and give it 100% anyway. That helped, things went uphill - by the end of the tour people in the audience were ripping their shirts off during my set. Haha… not really. But people did get into it.”

Danilewitz revelled in the opportunity to learn from a seasoned pro: “It was great to witness how professionally Wally [de Becker – Gotye] handled things on tour. Over five months we got to hang together pretty closely and experience like a million different scenarios, he is just so kind to everyone all the time, and he never compromises on his art.” Another inspiring figure for Danilewitz comes in the form of James Blake, who Danilewitz supported on his Australian tour last year: “It was a huge privilege,” reflects Danilewitz, “Like, so many people just want to say hello to James Blake, and I got to hang out with him; it was pretty surreal. I once DJ-ed with him at Low End Theory [LA], then when his Australian tour cropped up he remembered who I was and everything, I was like 'woah'... I did not expect that. James came up to me after one of the shows and was like, 'oh, the song that has that bassline like X, oh man… that's genius!'. I'm still really self-conscious when I perform; I feel like everyone's so good, so that was a really nice moment for me.” Danilewitz also found a like-mind in recent tour buddy Toro Y Moi. “I first met Toro Y Moi when he came to the Stones Throw studio when I was in LA, so I kind of knew him a bit before the tour. After the Melbourne show we stayed up really late together in the apartment he was staying in, just making beats in Reason, it was great.”

On the subject of jams, Danilewitz has been having some pretty good ones lately, at home in Sydney, where, as well as readying his next album, he's rehearsing a tribute to The Avalanches seminal album Since I Left You with a team of musicians on the Australian label Jonti is signed to, Astral People. Astral People is headed up by none other than Jonti's bro, Lee (actual brother – not just bro friend), who has also been Jonti's manager since day dot. The tribute, personally approved The Avalanches, will make its worldwide debut at Astral People's music festival Outside In, where Jonti and Astral crew will perform alongside the likes of Zomby, Laurel Halo, Object and Freddie Gibbs. Danilewitz sings the praises of Lee, and Astral People, a label that have moved at dizzying speed to sit at the forefront of Sydney's bass-bound frontier. “I can take credit with coming up for half the name, I said it should be called 'Astral Kids' then Lee was like 'how about Astral People?' But it's Lee's baby. They achieved so much last year, Lee called me from [the inaugural] Outside In and was like “Thom Yorke is at our festival!” I was away while Astral People really expanded, so I kind of missed all that.”

Since I Left You is a particularly memorable album for both brothers: it was the first album they heard upon migrating to Australia as teenagers. “Our family had just moved from South Africa to Australia in the year the album came out; so it was the first thing I heard, and I was like, 'man, pop music in Australia is amazing, its so strange and surreal!” (laughs)” In South Africa where I'd just come from pop was super commercial, like...Celine Dion. Not half as cool!”. Danilewitz's involvement with The Avalanches doesn't stop at the tribute though – he's actually done some stuff on their long-awaited next album (slated for release early 2014) and as Danilewitz told Music NSW a few months ago: “everything I've heard from it has fired up my soul and my booty big time!”

Jonti's likewise pretty fired up about coming to Perth next week to play at Circo; Astral People labelmate Dro Carey (who did a great remix of Jonti's Nightshift In Blue) will be there too: “Yeah it's rad Dro Carey's playing” comments Danilewitz, “Man, Dro's just a genius. Ah, I can't wait, the line up is amazing. I've seen a lot of friends on social media and stuff talking about Circo; I can see the hype, I think it will be a lot of fun.”