James Grant on 'Anjunadeep 04'

One of the A&R guys pulling the strings of Anjunabeats' sister label, Anjunadeep, James Grant has always had a wide-ranging taste in electronic music, so it's just as well his side-project has allowed him explore it.

Positioned as a canvas for the sounds felt by the crew but not immediately within the 'Beats' remit, the label naturally took on a flag-bearing role for the progressive scene throughout the latter part of the noughties. Traditionally slower and subtler than the trance crop reaped by its bigger brother, roughly around the 130bpm mark, 'Deep' has continued to evolve in recent months, soaking up everything that's landed on the team's horizon, pricked ears on the office stereo or the radio shows of its favourite artists.

“When we were working on Anjunabeats, there was a lot of interesting music that fell outside of its sound. So the label is just open to anything we are into that doesn't belong to Anjunabeats,” James tells DJ Mag. “There's a little bit of deep house crossover sound that people like Dusky are leading at the moment.”

The musical direction of Anjunadeep doesn't discriminate — even more so as the continuum continues to open up to cross-pollination. Even the deep disco-tech taking soundsystems by storm has found its way into Grant's affections, Maceo Plex's remix of Laura Jones licensed especially for James' side of the fourth instalment (out now) of the Anjunadeep compilation series. Consisting of two mixes — the other by fellow A&R man and touring DJ, Jaytech — the mixes serve as another tastemaker, representative of where the label is at right now. Full buy links here.

Listen to a taster of 'Anjunadeep 04' below and read James picking some of his favourite tunes of the moment in In The Bag... in the March issue of DJ Mag, out now in shops or available from DJmag.com/shop.

Following its launch last weekend, a second party is being thrown to welcome the album in the foyer of Brixton Academy for Above & Beyond's Easter Weekend show on Sunday 8th April.