For the past few years there’s consistently been one name at the forefront of new and exciting electronic music, Damian Lazarus.

At the forefront of the City Rockers label, Lazarus was behind the better music that spawned the ugly media phenomenon of electroclash, and then perfectly evolved out of the backlash to start Crosstown Rebels, a label which has brought the minimal techno sound to these shores. Jimmy Coultas got 5 minutes with the man ahead of his forthcoming appearance at the Circus third birthday.

“You’re scheduled top play at Circus third birthday on September 24th. It’s the first time you’ve played in Liverpool for a while, are you looking forward to it, and do you have an affinity with the clubbers of the city?”

I did play at Bugged Out a few years ago, and from what I can remember it was a really good party, but unfortunately my memory has seen better days and hasn’t served me that well this year! It’s been a long time and I’m looking forward to seeing what Liverpool is all about.

“The lineup includes Layo & Bushwacka!, Tim Deluxe, Stacey Pullen as well as Circus ringleader Yousef. Is there anyone you’re looking forward to playing alongside from that?”

I’ve never played with Yos before, we hung around together at Miami in March and we had a great crack, so he’s definitely the one I’m most excited about. I’m looking forward to seeing what his parties are like and djing with him.

“How has your year been so far, any stories from your trips around the world?"

It’s been absolutely awesome, I’ve been over to the states quite a lot, South America, Australia and all over Europe, and I’ve been hopping on a plane loads. Its been a pretty exciting time, and I’ve been lucky enough to share all this really exciting music with thousands of people.

“You’ve put two different compilation series out over the last few years, Rebel Futurism and Suck my deck. How do the two differ and compare?”

Rebel Futurism is like a sound of now, a historic template of what I’m playing at that point in time, and what music is hot at the release date. With the suck my deck compilation I’ve dug a bit deeper, gone for some more mindfuck tunes and basically just gone that little bit further into the crates. It’s more of a headfuck than just a snapshot of the best music out, so the two have differing listening merits.

“How is the label performing? Was it hard to pick yourself up after the manner in which Ministry dropped City Rockers?”

The label has been going really well, we’ve been picking up on some really exciting music and the reaction has been fantastic. As far as City rockers goes, it was a really easy transition and it’s something that hasn’t proven to be a problem at all. I’m really lucky because at the minute, I’m waking up every morning with a smile on my face. I’ve got good people working around me, I’m meeting even more good people all the time and I get to play records to loads more good people every weekend. Its just great being involved with the label and the way it is heading.

“You’ve been at the forefront of both the electro and minimal house/techno sound explosions over the past few years. Any tips on what is going to be the next musical development in 2006?”

I’ve always been involved with underground electronic music, it’s what I’ve pushing since I started djing. The two genres are quite closely interlinked, there’s a lot of stuff that overlap and join together within the genre. As far as next year, I can see more people looking into songs within music, so there will be more minimal techno with a song structure and more focus on vocals. It’s a natural progression for the music, and the evolution seems perfect, especially the way the music has moved on in the last few years.

“And finally, what’s the future for Damian Lazarus?”

The future for Damian Lazarus? More Underground music, and more late nights. Its as simple as that.