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Jazzanova
Biography
Berlin's Jazzanova collective formed in 1995, after DJing with one another at a club called Delicious Doughnuts. Alexander Barck, Class Brieler, Roskow Kretschmann, Stefan Leisering, Axel Reinemer, and Jürgen von Knoblauch shared a common goal of blending their collected inspirations together to create a new, sophisticated sound, with debts owed to nearly every form of dance-oriented music from the past several decades.

Like a lot of upstart producers and underexposed jazz-funk ghosts of the past, Jazzanova got their first major break from BBC disc jockey Gilles Peterson, who played the group's first production, "Fedime's Flight," on his program in 1997. This helped set off a series of remix projects, most of which -- for the likes of 4hero, Koop, Men From the Nile, and Ian Pooley -- would be compiled for the two-disc The Remixes 1997-2000. As the remixes and acclaim piled up, Barck, Brieler, and von Knoblauch were teaming together to make the Jazzanova name known for inspired DJ sets as well; Leisering and Reinemer teamed on the decks as Extended Spirit, and Kretschmann played out as Kosma.

The same year "Fedime's Flight" broke out in the dance underground, Jazzanova teamed up with the Munich-based Compost label to form JCR (Jazzanova Compost Records).