Audiojack Gave Up "Fake News" to Make House Music

It was around 4:20 in the afternoon when New Times caught up with James Rial and Richard Burkinshaw, better known as the house-music duo Audiojack. The two were making the breathtaking drive from Breckenridge to Denver, having tapped into the Rockies for a few days of whitewater rafting, ziplining, camping, and other Colorado fun.

“We love it here. Most of our time in the States is in cities, but we had this chance to get away in Colorado," Burkinshaw says. "It’s great. We’ve been busy; we’re eating four to five meals a day."

Colorado’s chill vibes resemble Audiojack's headquarters in the northern part of Ibiza. A lot of hippies call the region home, and it’s an escape from the 24-hour southern Ibiza nightclub shrines such as Pacha and Amnesia. Even De Todo, the newspaper back home, is all love, self-described as “the free good-news newspaper for Ibiza and Formentera.” A headline from August 1 reads, “Billionaire Gives Away His Fortune to Save the Oceans.”

“All this negative noise and fake-news shit is why we moved to Ibiza. Our consumption of news is De Todo. It’s only good news. There is nothing negative in there, and we don’t even bother turning on the TV,” Rial says.

Slow internet is a small price to pay to be able to run their label and make music from the peace of the White Isle. Audiojack will bring its latest work to Trade this Friday, August 25. Expect a remix of Kerri Chandler’s “Six Pianos” and a few originals from the duo's new EP. Their sets are a deviation from the world’s love affair with flat techno. The set, they say, will offer peaks, valleys, melody, soul, and storytelling.

Rial and Burkinshaw grew up in Leeds, England, and make music from their roots. “We came up in the scene listening to Sasha, Paul Woolford, and the Crosstown Rebels label. Now we’re releasing music on these labels,” Burkinshaw says.

True to their U.K. roots, the two call their 2016 appearance on Pete Tong’s Essential Mix the pinnacle of their career. An appearance on Tong’s two-hour weekly BBC Radio 1 show — the OG of podcasts since 1993 — is knighthood for DJs. But Rial and Burkinshaw are also fond of their trips to Miami: Throughout their career, they have performed at Space, Electric Pickle, and countless Winter Music Conference shows.

One WMC moment in particular stands out: “We had just come off the stage and were having a chat with Sasha backstage," Rial recalls. "Obviously, we’re longtime fans. In fact, we’ve been listening to him for more than 20 years. As we’re talking, a kid walked up and asked Sasha to take a photo of us with him. I was like, This kid doesn’t realize he asked Sasha to take a photo. It was pretty funny.”

Audiojack. 11 p.m. Friday, August 25, at Trade,1439 Washington Ave., Miami Beach; 305-531-6666; trademia.com. Tickets cost $10 via residentadvisor.net.