Milton Jackson
Milton Jackson got the house music bug aged 18 after receiving an MPC2000 for his birthday. A year later he released his first EP on Stevie Sole’s Tronicsole, picked up by Roger Sanchez for a Mixmag compilation. 3 more EPs for Tronicsole followed and an album for Glasgow Underground entitled ‘The Bionic Boy’ in 2001. Bionic Boy received plaudits from Tom Middleton, Laurent Garnier and Ashley Beadle. Jockey Slut called MJ ‘the most exciting thing to happen to UK house music’ and awarded the album 5 stars. Bionic Boy spawned some memorable singles; Sunlight even got a review in NME. ‘Dimensional’ tickled Romanthony’s feathers so much he asked to remix it. After the success of Bionic Boy and the accompanying live tour, EPs were completed for the likes of Black Vinyl, Bear Trax (Milton’s own label) and Omid 16B’s Alola. Milton even worked with a young Mylo on their ‘Pretty Boys’ project.
In 2006 a new relationship was formed with Jimpster’s Freerange and saw collaborations with fellow deep house don Shur-i-kan. The 2 released ‘I Want It’ and ‘Special Powers’ (BBC Dance single of the month) to great acclaim. From there EPs followed for the likes of Tsuba, Crack & Speed, Silver Network and Icon. 2007 saw the release of ‘Cycles’, an epic melodic track, voted by 200,000 Buzzin Fly radio listeners as one of their top 10 tracks of the year. From here Milton started engaged in a frantic DJ schedule worldwide taking in venues such as Womb Tokyo, Goa Madrid, 360 Dubai, Cocoon Frankfurt, Tresor Berlin, Pacha Ibiza, Warehouse 702 Tokyo, Anzu Brazil, Barzilay Tel Aviv and a very special live set at the Sonar Festival.
In 2008 Milton’s most successful single to date ‘Ghosts In My Machines’ was released. A firm Miami WMC favourite this track was released as part of Freerange’s 100th release. The biggest selling deep house track of 2008 on Beatport, it went on to win a Beatport Award for Best Deep House Track with Milton coming 3rd in the producer contest behind Jimpster and Dennis Ferrer - heady company indeed.
With the success of ‘Ghosts In My Machines’ Freerange were keen for Milton to complete an album. Milton went on to record arguably his most seminal work to date: “Crash”. Uncut Magazine called Crash “'Darkly sophisticated, tech-edged deep house, adding judicious samples of exotica and sci-fi soundtracks to laudably fresh, clean and moodily funky effect“. DJ Magazine said Crash ‘'Reinvents house music for the future' / 'where electronic house melts into the darker machinations of the techno spectrum...”
2009 was topped off with a win in the DJ Awards in the Deep House category. Milton picked up his award at Pacha in Ibiza alongside the likes of Pete Tong, Luciano and Sven Vath. 2010 sees no let up in Milton’s DJ or production schedule. An EP for Neurotraxx topped the Beatport charts at the start of the year plus Milton continues to work on the label he co-founded with Shur-i-kan ‘Dark Energy’. Milton has already started work on his 2nd Freerange album for release in early 2011 and continues to DJ internationally. He was also nominated for another Ibiza DJ Award in the deep house category.
