It was around 2000 when Nanthara Vorabouth and Zeljko 'Jelly Jam' Pijuk Schmitt got in contact with each other seriously through buying records and crate diggin. Comming from the city of Mannheim/Germany and deeply rooted in the local hip hop scene, both soon realized their similar love for so called soulful music, from ,jazz, funk, modern soul to disco, boogie and 80's funk. They immediately hit it off and started spinning records back to back at several local funk'n'soul partys.
With their demand to bring dj-ing to another level they started using keyboards and percussions live on stage. The dj breakthrough came with the monthly resident 'Soul Delicious' event at the Soho club in Mannheim around 2003/04, playing all genres of soulful music.
Besides the dj-ing there was always a strong attempt to produce and release their own material. So in early 2005 they joint forces with four other friends and producers to form the “We Move†collective. In late 2005 they dropped the “We Move Ep†vinyl 12’’ on their own Label “High Steppin Recordsâ€, which attracted the attention of none other less than Larry Heard and Alex Attias using their traxs on several mixes and radioshows.
In 2006 Jelly Jam produced a deep house remix of a’ Thomas Sifling Trio’ jazztune and achieved international acclaim with following licences to London and Japan.
The many musical facettes of the six High Steppin members caused the demand to form several side projects to shape the face of each style and give it an authentic identity.
So 2006 is also the point where the project “First Touch’’ was created by Nanthara and Jelly and first saw the light of the world. First Touch is a synonym for classic disco, boogie and 80’s synth funk with an approach to keep it as original as possible. Beautiful chord progressions combined with complex song structure and authentic sound engineering are the main ingredients. To make a long story short: Positive, good feeling funk music.
First Touch Lp out now!! Free download at www.highsteppin.de
First Touch now featured on the Mercedes Benz MixedTape Compilation!
Free Download of "Toe Jammin"! (click picture to open):
