Student Radio Association

Our interview was truly unique: not only was the manner in which it was conducted bizarre and different to any other we did this year; but it was a world exclusive which was taken by some bloggers and sent around the world before reaching one of the most widely-respected DJ forums on the planet – Beatportal.com (http://www.beatportal.com/feed/item/zodiac-cartel-does-radio-interview-sort-of/).

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We first came across Zodiac Cartel through his track Devil’s Music at the beginning of 2008, before discovering we knew his manager. The DJ, like Fake Blood before, has gone to great lengths to keep his identity a secret and consequently has been reluctant to give interviews. However, his popularity in the underground electronic music scene had reached such a level he needed to break his silence. After months of pestering on our part, we were approached to do the interview.

However, both artist and manager wanted to maintain the enigma of Zodiac Cartel’s identity and they did not want us to meet him/her/they/it or use their actual voice. Consequently we had to send our questions in advance to Zodiac Cartel and wait for the answers to be sent back.  What we received was quite spectacular and their uniqueness is one particular reason why we feel our interview should be regarded as a contender for ‘best interview’. 

Because we could not speak to Zodiac Cartel directly, and the answers were put through – to quote Beatportal – a ‘kind of voice changer that kidnappers might use when demanding a ransom over the phone’, the interview had to be produced very differently to normal interviews. 

After we received the answers, we recorded the questions which had been answered from the ones we sent, to create the interview to be broadcast. We lay it over a loop of the introduction to his production ‘We Don’t Play That’. 

Unlike most interviews the only research we could do was to listen to the actual productions of Zodiac Cartel and any information which he had released on his MySpace page. This was because our interview was breaking the DJ’s silence. There was no past example for us to base our interview on or line of questioning to continue. We had to think of ways to revel some of the DJ’s secrets and draw information out of him/her/they/it in a way which he/she/they/it would be happy with and would not unmask any clues to Zodiac Cartel’s identity. 

We broadcasted the interview on our Thursday night show in the same week as Zodiac Cartel’s ‘We Don’t Play That’ was released - coincidently we were also one of the first radio shows in the world to give the track air-time. It was released via our podcast on iTunes and podomatic.com for free-download, and it was done so by our subscribers and unique downloaders in the university and across the world. As mentioned, it fascinated the attention of many bloggers, and began appearing on many different blogs and websites across the internet.

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Although the identity of Zodiac Cartel has still not officially been revealed either to us or the DJ community, a number of people have made suggestions as to who it may be. Both Fake Blood and Dubstep producer Burial remained a mystery until their mask was taken off and it did them no harm – and perhaps for Zodiac Cartel it may well give similar success.