Empty Skies (Deep Thump Vocal Dub)

Isaac Basker Aliases: DJ President Ike | Prez Ike | Ize Bernard

A New Yorker by birth, Isaac Basker's path to creating House and Techno, while not conventional, exemplifies the roots, history, and influences of his home city. Growing up in Westbeth, a Manhattan artist community, Isaac was pushed to express himself through more traditional art forms such as singing in the Metropolitan Opera and quite serious playing of the violin. Yet, by the late 80's and early 90s exposure to his city's vast and innovative community of hip-hop, and dance music culture began to take hold of him.

By 18, as DJ President Ike, Isaac began hosting and DJing a widely followed hip-hop mix show on college radio, catering to more underground sounds. As a growing DJ and Turntablist, this eventually led to working closely with hip-hop legends, Public Enemy, as part of the Internet based Rap super group The Impossebulls and the Downtempo Turntablist concept group, Illegal Thought Process with releases on Chuck D's label Slam Jamz. This eventually led to appearances Isaac made as DJ President Ike, recording scratches on Public Enemy's own releases.

By mid-00's with hip-hop becoming increasingly commercialized, and dancing within that scene's underground level disappearing, Isaac began to turn to various forms of electronic music, and combining eclectic sounds together into his sets. In 2005 This led to his creating one of the early podcast mix shows, the highly acclaimed, 'Indelible Beats' labeled "Fresh beats for your head nodd and body move crav-ings..." a sort of fusion of up-tempo, rhythm-oriented music meant primarily for the dance floor. This desire to entice dancers to move their bodies to tracks they have never heard gradually led to Isaac's increased interest in making his own productions of House and Techno.

Being exposed to the Deep House of New York clubs in the 90's led Isaac, early in his production career, to develop a sound that exudes that influence, and was in step with the resurgence of House and Techno in New York during the • late 2000's and early 2010's. This can be understood clearly with Isaac's first solo release, "Found & Lost EP" released on the Brooklyn based label, Thema in 2011, featuring a remix from The Bronx-based purveyor of NYC underground sounds, DJ Spider. In 2013 Isaac started his own label, Play It, Say What?," releasing his own tracks again with "Resilience Sans Relapse EP," featuring remix work this time from one of the masters of NYC's deep house resurgence, Fred P.

Labels: Play It Say What, Thema, Slam Jamz, Koch

Podcast Mix Series': Indelible Beats

Groups: The Impossebulls, Illegal Thought Process

Featured DJ Scratching, Turntablism, Arrangements:

Public Enemy, The Impossebulls, LowDown, DJ Butterface, Nadir, Pluside, Regenerated Headpiece, etc.

Feedback:

Isaac Basker - White Souls Lost Pt. II [Play It Say What 003]: 

"Essential deep house tracks" - Hard Wax

Isaac Basker - Found and Lost EP // Thema [Digital] [THEMA 8.14]:

DJ Sprinkles (Comatonse, Skylax, Mule) - "new york meets early warp! yay!"

Mr. G (Mr. G) - "love the stop beastin..........solid ep"

DVS1 (Hushsound) - "Stop Beastin!!! and relax yourself girl! NICE!!!"

B Pitch (B Pitch) [Ellen Allien] - "Nice one!"

Perc (Perc Trax) - "Deep and jackin' - like it."

Paul Corey (Resident Advisor, Cacophonous Bling Blog) - 

"Where's this chap been hiding? This is superb! Classic Detroit stylings and still sounding incredibly fresh. Not a duff track on it."

Sebo K - "dope release ! full support !"

The Impossebulls - ‘The Impossebulls’ [Slam Jamz]

AlMusic.com Review - “…a show stealing performance by DJ President Ike”

New York City Represent, Represent, sent....

Empty Skies (Deep Thump Vocal Dub)

Isaac Basker (DJ President Ike)