In Conversation: J.Pool

Following the release of Curawaka's Dreamtime Remixes EP, which featured an outstanding remix of their song 'Shamboriri' by J.Pool, we caught up with the globally renowned DJ and producer to find out more about his musical journey.

‘Shamboriri’ - written by Alberto Arroyo and Anna Stokkeland of Curawaka - is the dream of bringing a thousand songs together, for humanity to return to its essence, the goodness. A song that shines light on how we can protect the miracle of life. It features an appearance by highly respected medicine man Muwieri Xaure Eusebio López from the indigenous Wixarika people of Mexico. He sings a ‘canto del marakame’ - a powerful and sacred medicine song, which calls in the spirits of the desert Wirikuta in order to hear and support the song ́s message.

In J.Pool’s remix, Curawaka’s song meets and moves the dancefloor. Vibrant rhythms and electronic beats carry the profoundly meaningful vocals in new directions, taking the body on a winding journey through sound. Having played it out for several months and witnessed the impact of it within the ecstatic dance space, Joseph Defaria aka J.Pool was excited for it's eventual release this Summer.

Living nomadically, J.Pool traverses the planet seeking inspiration from nature, culture and human connection. This becomes apparent when you hear his music and follow his adventures online. A seeker through and through, he loves to share drops of wisdom as he finds them along the way, loves to curate experiences and gather people together to dance and celebrate life, to be vibrant and to be grateful. One of the sweetest ways to show gratitude for this life is to dance! To use our bodies the way they should be used, to create and share life, creativity, warmth and togetherness. This is never more apparent than on an ecstatic dance floor, the place J.Pool found the greatest inspiration and which led him to where he is now.

His skills as a multi-instrumentalist musician and as a seeker come together in his sets as he blends a wide range of genres and textures, traditional and organic sounds. As these move alongside electronic beats, J.Pool creates an elevated dance experience that captivates the listener in every layer of their being. No wonder his music has gathered millions of streams and his touring schedule is in a continual flow. When genuine talent means deeply inspired action and intention, beautiful things happen!

It's a true pleasure to share his remix on Nixi Music, to meet him and his music fully and to consider him a part of our growing family. So let's find out more from the artist himself...

At what point did your musical journey begin? What called you towards the creation of sound and how did the early days look?

Music was always in the house. My parents had it playing constantly, in the car, at home, rock and disco and world music. My dad with his Pink Floyd, my mom with Cher and the disco stuff. I knew the words to everything before I knew what any of it meant. They took me to live shows from when I was two or three years old, and I have memories of being 11 or 12 at Irish punk rock shows because my best friend's dad was in the band, standing there watching guys with mohawks in the mosh pit.

My mom got me my first electric guitar for my birthday when I was 11. I wanted to play Hendrix and AC/DC. But I was so shy. I never played in front of anyone, barely even for my family. It was my own sacred practice alone in my room. And honestly I never thought music was something I could actually do. I was a competitive swimmer, focused on sport and school, and music was this beautiful thing that existed outside of me. Something other people got to do.

How did you find your way into production?

I went to university for engineering at 18 and got very depressed in my first year. I felt like I was walking into some kind of mind control. Nothing about the teaching or the environment resonated, and I couldn't see my life going down that path at all.

That summer between first and second year I was sitting with friends listening to dubstep and I turned to my buddy and said, what is this? He said, it's dubstep, obviously. And I said yeah but what IS it. With a band I know it's a guitar and a bass and a guy singing, but this I have no idea how it's even made, and I love it. He said his cousin makes it and gave me Reason. That was my first program, still 18 years old.

I went straight to YouTube tutorials, every single day. It was the first time both halves of me were being used at once. My brain is good with math and science and technical things, that's why I was in engineering, but I have this very sensitive emotional side that was completely starving in that program. Production brought the two together. About two months in, the guy I was learning from switched to Ableton Live, and that was the beginning of everything. That's almost 14 years ago now. Ableton changed my life.

Second year I didn't do a single piece of homework. I left and did a one year audio recording engineering program instead, which was partly real and partly a way to convince myself and my parents that I wasn't just running off. I paid for about half of it by tree planting in Northern Ontario, living in a tent for two and a half months, ten cents a tree. My uncle and my family covered the rest, people who believed in me leaving the path I'd started.

I thought I'd end up doing sound design for film and games. But every time I sat down to work on sound design I'd last half an hour, then switch over to Ableton and start making music. So I figured it out pretty quickly. I was 20, working in a bar, a clothing store and a restaurant in London Ontario, just paying rent so I could make music and go to every show I could. I didn't put anything online for three or four years. I just practiced.

How and when did you first discover the world of ecstatic dance and more wellness focused music events and gatherings?

That came out of traveling. My first trip was to Portugal, where my dad's family is from, and I released my very first J.Pool EP there, called Hollow, which isn't online anymore. I didn't play a single show in Europe that trip. I just went around hostels showing people my music, and people would carry it to the next hostel and send me videos of it playing somewhere else. That's when I learned how this actually spreads.

The next year I went to Mexico and Central America and decided okay, this year I DJ. I landed on the Pacific coast with a little Traktor Z1 in my backpack and started telling people I'm a DJ from Canada, can I play here. Almost everyone said yes. My first gig was in my hostel.

Then I got to Lake Atitlán in Guatemala and that changed everything. Someone said "there's an ecstatic dance tonight with cacao at the Eagle's Nest, you should come". I had no idea what any of those words meant but it sounded good so I went. I walked in and just thought, this is it, this is everything. So I asked who's in charge because I wanted to play. That's how I met Stefan, who runs NUMA Medicine Music and is now one of my closest friends. He invited me to play the Eagle's Nest with him, and I fell in love with the dance, the tribe, all of that energy. It's been a core part of my life ever since.

I made my first real J.Pool EP, Awakening, on that trip, and it ended up coming out on NUMA because months later, back in Canada, I remembered "oh yeah, that guy from Guatemala with the record label". Found him on Facebook, sent the music. My first single Selva came out of that, and I have the artwork tattooed on my arm.

Who in the genre and culture do you look to for inspiration, are their any artists that continue to inspire your path forward and inform your musical choices?

The artists who move me most in this world are Mose, El Búho, Rodrigo Gallardo and Awaré. And the beautiful thing is that I was a fan of most of them long before I knew any of them. Now some are friends, and some I've actually collaborated with. That still surprises me sometimes. You spend years listening to someone's music alone in your room and then one day you're in a studio with them, or on the same lineup, and it just feels like the path was always pointing there.

Further out I look at artists like RY X, people who build a whole world you can step into instead of explaining themselves to you. And underneath all of it is still Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and growing up in Windsor right on the Detroit border, which put techno and hip hop in me early.

How do you find traveling has helped bring your musical journey to the moment it’s currently in?

Completely. I never let where I was limit what I made. I wrote a song with Stefan and Aluna Ritual Music inside my tent in the forest in British Columbia while I was tree planting. Sri Lanka, India, Morocco, Bali, Nicaragua, Portugal, all of it went in.

I loved arriving somewhere alone where I didn't know the people or the language and knowing I'd have to learn it. That made me excited, not afraid. Bali was where I stopped drinking. I'd become very sensitive to people's energy under alcohol and drugs, including my own, and at a Christmas party I just knew I was done. That's when it all really started pointing at the music I make now.

Berlin taught me something too. The community there was beautiful but after six weeks the energy of the city was too heavy for me. I need nature. And COVID kept me on an island in Lake Nicaragua for seven months, living on a permaculture farm in the jungle with a group of artists, which I'm still grateful for.

All of that time I was surviving on tree planting money, sleeping on friends' couches, playing whatever I could. Nothing about it was fast. But the land of Central America really held me, and Tulum is where I finally landed and where my son was born at home.

What dreams and goals do you look to achieve the coming years and what would you like to see more of in this culture in general?

I feel so grateful for everywhere music has taken me, all the friend's I've made through it, all the experiences I've had, all the personal growth, it's truly incredible. Right now I'm just focused on continuing to grow my project/brand as J.Pool, to collaborate with inspiring artists and to continue creating music that I love, which is a beautiful and never ending challenge because I'm always changing and evolving!

Listen to Curawaka's Dreamtime Remixes EP: HERE.

Find J.Pool online: HERE.