Machinedrum and Jimmy Edgar—J-E-T-S—are next in our Ask the Experts series, following on from Blawan, whose answers are coming soon. 

J-E-T-S should be familiar with all XLR8R readers by now, having submitted a podcast back in 2015—and with both members having featured prominently on our pages. Machinedrum, real name Travis Stewart, has completed a studio feature and written some highly informative Artist Tips, while Jimmy Edgar completed a Hi-Five in 2015. 

The feature comes before the release of the duo’s debut album, Zoospa, out May 24 via Innovative Leisure following a series of EPs released on the their own Ultramajic dating back to 2012. We’re told to expect a fiercely cohesive but wildly varied long-player. 

Machinedrum and Edgar first met as teenagers on a pivotal trip to Miami, one of their first ever gigs outside of the places they were raised (Edgar originally hails from Detroit, Machinedrum from rural North Carolina.) They bonded over a mutual love of Warp, Schematic Records, and Chocolate Industries. A tight friendship was forged when both lived in New York but their first self-titled EP didn’t drop until 2012, by the time the pair had independently decamped to Berlin.

Eventually, they relocated to Los Angeles where their second EP was recorded in 2015. The idea was always to record something bigger and more expansive, but it didn’t become a reality until Edgar headed up the coast, eventually settling and building a home studio in Portland. That’s where Machinedrum headed in the late summer of 2017 to cook up the tracks that eventually became Zoospa. 

Zoospa will land on May 24, but ahead of the release you can send in your questions for them about production, DJing, or just about everything else.  

All questions should be sent to [email protected] with “JETS” as the subject line. We’ll pass them along to the duo who will then select their favourites, and soon we’ll publish the answers.