Yankee Zulu

Yankee Zulu is the monkier of Belfast based dj and producer John McIver.

John’s fascination with dance music started at the tender age of 14 when he acquired his first set of turntables and spent hours upon hours getting to grips with the art of beat mixing.. He was first being influenced by heavyweights like Carl Cox and Joey Beltram who were playing guest spots at the Hellraiser raves held in the Ulster hall in Belfast in the early nineties. On the local front influences came in the form of David Holmes and Ian McCready who ran the legendary SugarSweet parties in Belfast. As a result of all this he quickly developed a love for all things house and techno, something that remains evident in his productions today.

He would religiously scour local record shops every weekend looking for the freshest sounds he could find, and bombard his friends with his weekly mix tapes. John regularly attended Timmy Stewart and Mark Bell’s Digital Boogie and Tsunami parties and got a real taste of proper electronic music by hearing what guests like Chris Duckenfield, Hipp-E, Miguel Migs and Ralph Lawson were up to behind the decks.

Around the same time John (not to do things by halves) passed 6 mixes onto Shine and Stiff Kitten head honcho Alan Simms resulting in a booking not long after…After a few stellar performances John was soon asked to become an official Shine and Stiff Kitten resident and put in performances across both venues, playing alongside the likes of Damian Lazarus, Andrew Weatherall, Freeform Five, Paul Woolford, Agoria, Green Velvet and many more..

Production was the next logical step so John experimented in the studio as the Sigma Kids and released two tracks on ISHO recordings. It was later decided that he should go into the studio with Timmy Stewart to work on some music, which was promptly picked up by Silicone Soul’s Darkroom Dubs imprint, and so the Jet Project was born. Gaining more studio knowledge and confidence John started his solo project Yankee Zulu, which leaned more towards his love of filthy jacking house sounds.

After sending out demos a myspace friendship was struck up with label boss of KataBatic Records, San Fran’s Worthy, his debut material is due to drop on Katabatic later this year with further tracks and remixes forthcoming out on Utensil Recordings and Om records, expect big tings from Yankee Zulu!