James Jackson is the young London scenster and established international DJ who played a pivotal role in setting up some of London's early club scene. He honed his skills being a resident for respected glam club brands Halo, Kinky Malinki and the former London institution The Cross. With his encyclopedic knowledge of dance music, clubs, producers and DJ's, when this guy says something is dope then you'd better listen. Now as A&R scout for the respected and newly relaunched Fluential label, he discloses some of the secrets that this imprint has to offer.

Do you think it’s a good time for Fluential to return?

Without a doubt, the label was a major player in molding the tribal tech scene back in the day, way before the scene blew up into what it is now, so bringing it back out of retirement and signing new tracks from today’s young blood, and some of the original players, makes perfect sense, its something I’ve been on the boss’ case about for a few years, so its great to see it come to fruition.

Any big plans for the label in the pipeline?

I think it’s more the same for the time being, putting out some great new tracks. Zoo Brazil, Sultan & Ned Shepard and Mike Dunn have all just dropped releases so you can see the sort of quality we’re talking about. New Dutch talent Afrojack’s just remixed the Mike Dunn record, that’s proper dope, and we’ve got a couple of bits coming from H.O.S.H and new thing from Gilbert Le Funk - Africantastique (David Tort Mix - he’s got some heavy skills in the studio). So I think its just building the label back to its former glory and the point of this comp was to show its heritage and get people buzzing about the label again.

How did you select the tracks for the 'In-Fluential' compilation? Any particular stand outs?

A few of the tracks were just musts to be honest, I grew up with this label so tracks like Kidstuff’s ‘Alright’ and Ted Paterson’s ‘Magnifique’ were just no brainers really. It took time to go through the catalogue to make sure that the comp was a true representation of the label, so not just those techy tribal tracks that Fluential is renound for,  some of the other lesser known records like the Annette Taylor ‘Faith’ and Knee Deep ‘Can We Really Do This?’ that were just great house records.

What else have you got going on at the moment?

Well running club promotions for Defected and all the other label affiliates is a full time job and with the amount of artists and records we’re working at the moment its full on, but my weekends are still busy gigging heavily, at Madd in Switzerland this weekend which is a wicked club, and pretty busy in London at the moment running a night down in Clapham (South London) amongst others and trying to get in the studio when I can, oh and sleep when I can fit it in.

Who would you like to see working with Fluential in the future?

Would be great to see some more work form H.O.S.H I rate this dude highly, but with so much music and talent out there at the moment I think the priority is just signing quality tracks on that deeper, techier, tribal edge that we just wouldn’t put out on Defected. Check out the comp and the new releases and you’ll know what I mean.