Roska

Emma Warren

We are here on the couch with Roska, he’s a South London producer who started out as a bedroom garage MC… He has found himself of being in a position where he is one of those few names that people even outside of UK-bass music might know. I guess, other people you might put in that bracket are Joy Orbison or Joker… everyone seems to know the names even if they don’t know the music that well. But obviously people know your music, too, partly because you did a whole load of remixes last year. You told me 15, I misheard that as 50 and thought, “Wow, that is so ’90s,” but 15 is a more manageable number, and you have also got a whole load of tunes on your hard drive, I understand. Did you say 500?

Roska

Yes, about 500 tunes. I did them in about 2 and a half years, and I had a full-time job.

Emma Warren

Which, incidentally, has just become history because you’ve just made the transition from working full-time to doing music full-time. For you guys, you might imagine these producers to be off living the life, but actually, behind the scenes they might be having to hold down jobs because that transition from working full-time on your day job to working in music can be really difficult. No doubt, we will be covering that as well at some point. The other interesting thing about Roska is that he is one of those what you might call, think about your maths class, a Venn diagram DJ, a producer who sits across a few different areas. So, you find people from different areas of music, housey stuff, funky stuff, dubsteppy stuff, kind of interacting with you and your music and often playing beside you. He is going to be playing some of the music that has influenced him throughout the years, some of his own music, and maybe a few little exclusives as well, if we are lucky. I guess, really all we should say is welcome Roska, or should we say, “Roska, Roska”?

[Applause]

Sorry, I couldn’t resist that. I guess, some people might not know about the culture of specials and actually putting your name on records. The “Roska, Roska” thing is something you find on some of your records, or certainly when you’re playing on the radio or in clubs. For the uninitiated, what is that all about?

Roska

It was just a trademark. I used it on my second EP that I released in August ’08, and it was just a thing where I put it on one of the tracks just to distinguish that it’s mine. I just kept on using it and using it and using it, so that is where it came from.

Emma Warren

But it does tap into a venerable tradition of people doing specials, which would be re-versioning songs with the DJ’s name on it. Marcus Nasty does that a lot, other people do, too. So, it is not just a random thing to do, is it? It is part of a heritage.

Roska

Yeah, it all spanned down from dancehall and having dubplates and stuff, and it’s just taking the whole movement. I just kind of implemented it, and I think a few others have done it and it has kind of taken off in the whole kind of funky thing. Everybody’s doing it, Crazy Cousinz…

Emma Warren

I suppose, if we were to file you in a record shop, you would assume that you would fall into the funky file. But if we were filing human beings in record shops it might put pressure on the walls. I thought that it might be interesting to give these guys a bit of a sense of what funky is like from your point of view. Now, if you are coming from the outside, you might have some assumptions or preconceptions about funky house and what it sounds like. Perhaps you think it is just the sort of soca sound or just the sound of whatever it is you think it sounds like. But obviously, we have an expert here on the couch, so really we should ask you. What is the spectrum of funky music?

Roska

Funky is a cross between a few genres. It takes garage, it takes grime, it takes electro, it takes tribal, it takes soca, and it kind of just puts it into one basket. Even on some of my tracks, or a few others like Crazy Cousinz or Invasion Records, those guys, you will hear the congas in there, you’ll hear skippy beats in there. It is more about the drums and a little bit of bass as well, so it takes everything from everywhere, dancehall as well, and it just kind of puts it into one basket. Some producers will take some parts of it more than other parts, in terms of taking bits from another genre to another genre to make it. So, funky is a bit of everything put into one.

Emma Warren

So, if we are thinking about a spectrum, you have got your more soca people, your more grimy people, your more housey people, who are we talking about and what do they sound like?

Roska

In terms of the producer?

Emma Warren

I guess, if we are considering for the next ten minutes a little bit of a masterclass in funky from the master himself, then it’s your chance to explain to all these people here what it is really like and what is there within the genre. Who would you talk about and what does the music sound like?

Roska

I’ll talk about Crazy Cousinz, first of all. They’ve been doing quite a lot, and they grew quite big quite rapidly as well. They take their side more from the soulful element, more vocals, a lot of singing on their tunes, and it is kind of directed more at a female audience in terms of the lyrics of their songs. That’s where Crazy Cousinz come from. If you were to say, compared to myself, more of my tunes are instrumentally based and stripped down. It is more about the bass, the drums, the snares, and it is darker so it will come from your dubstep, your darker garage element.

Emma Warren

So, you’ve got Crazy Cousinz on the party Saturday night side, you’ve got you, who would represent the more grimier darker sound?

Roska

The grimier darker sound, you’ve got Lil Silva, he has got that grimier edge to his tunes, also even Scratcha. Scratcha has gotten more dark and then he comes from a grime background anyway, so his tunes will always show that as well. Geeneus, I would say is in between, where he has got this grimy edge and he has got a soulful edge, so he has got that whole thing in one, if you know what I mean. They are the main ones, I would say.

Emma Warren

Excellent, so now we have – hopefully for some of you that are not in the UK funky world – a little bit of a sense of things, or perhaps even some names to go out and check out afterwards, if you’re interested. And again, the whole thing about the Academy is opening you up to the stuff that you don’t know about and delving deeper into stuff that you wouldn’t know about normally. I guess right now is a good time to hear about what we’re talking about. I know you have selected some music for us, so why don’t you play a Roska tune, so we start hearing what you’re about as well as hearing you talking about it?

Roska

I’ll play my first track I released in February ’08, it’s called “Feeline.” I released it on vinyl and on MP3. Some of you might have heard it.

Emma Warren

It had a pretty big impact, this record, didn’t it?

(music: Roska – “Feeline”)

So that record did quite a lot for you, didn’t it?

Roska

I was making grime and garage before I was making funky house. I kind of kept those in the background and carried on experimenting and that is how I came up with this. I’ve taken elements of what I’m used to hearing and making, and just interpreting what I’ve made here.

Emma Warren

With broken beat, were you involved in that as a fan, were you going to clubs and buying records?

Roska

I was just listening to it here and there because a lot of the DJs that are DJing to funky and making funky, they were playing the broken beat stuff – they wanted Bugz in the Attic and even Nathan Haines, those sort of producers – so they could get that balance to what they wanted. I think that is where the balance came in, in ’08 and ’09, where that element came into it more and more and a lot more UK producers got into making what we call funky.

Emma Warren

So, in your view what was it about broken beat that attracted you? Percussion, drums or what?

Roska

It’s definitely the whole drum structure and the percussion, the way it is laid out. It was skippy and most of it, the ones I was listening to, it was smooth sailing, so it was more like a roller, I would say. Some broken beat is broken to the point where it is, I can’t explain. But it is like stabby. The ones I listen to are more skippy and have got that traveling effect to it.

Emma Warren

Is the skippiness something that you picked up through your time listening to UK garage? Is that part of why you like it?

Roska

I listened to garage and I was listening to a lot of Timbaland, and a lot of producers, and even drum & bass as well, where the percussion and the drum patterns were so skippy. I am really fascinated by drum patterns and the way they are constructed, and that’s kind of why some of my tunes are really skippy as well.

Emma Warren

So, if you say you’re fascinated by drum patterns, what does that really mean? Does that mean you’ll be listening out for records with that? Or when you hear a record with an interesting drum pattern you’re trying to work out how it was done? Or you simply spend a lot of time building them?

Roska

I spend a lot of time building drum patterns, but I just like the way they are constructed. I don’t really like looking into how they were done, but I like the way that they are actually constructed, in terms of the way they roll and the way they can make the tune travel. That’s what I like, anyway.

Emma Warren

So, more about drums as a way of carrying you through a tune, rather than being particularly focused on using certain sounds to make your drum sound a certain way… Talking about drums for just a minute longer, you use FruityLoops, and you have been using that for a long time?

Roska

About ten years, yeah.

Emma Warren

So, why is FruityLoops a good package for you to be using, because obviously the drum sounds that you get is one of the reasons why people really like your tunes… why is Fruity Loops good for that?

Roska

I just find it quick to use. I can turn my computer on and get straight on it, and I can make the drum pattern within seconds. The ideas I have in my head, I can quickly put them down and I’ve found it easy to use for so long. I was going to change to using Logic, but I can’t be bothered to learn it.

Emma Warren

Why don’t we hear something else of yours and, afterwards, you talk us through something about how you built the drums or something specific about how you did it?

Roska

I’m going to play this track from my album, it is coming out in April, it is called “Tomorrow Is Today.”

(music: Roska – “Tomorrow Is Today”)

Emma Warren

You play at quite a broad spectrum of venues. When I was looking the other day at your MySpace I noticed that you are playing at Dirty Canvas with Scratcha, and you have got something coming up at ChockABlock, which I want to ask you about because that’s an interesting event in its own right. And then you’re playing at a club called Sexy Plastic at a night called La Cheetah.

Roska

I’m not sure about that one yet. I just put it on the MySpace but I kind of just…

Emma Warren

No disrespect to Sexy Plastic, it might be that they are the baddest club on the earth. But the point is, is they all sound like quite different venues with quite different crowds.

Roska

I mean, I can definitely talk about the first two. I think the first two are quite similar. The actual Dirty Canvas night was more orientated to grime and garage, whereas now they’re moving over to the spectrum of funky and widening their horizons. Dubstep has been heavily involved in that as well. ChockABlock...

Emma Warren

What is ChockABlock?

Roska

I have no idea, 100%, but I know it’s mainly grime. I think I am the only funky DJ on the line-up and I’m doing a half-hour slot, but it’s mainly grime. A lot of the grime DJs and stuff, they do a bit of the funky as well.

Emma Warren

See, I thought you were going to give us some grimy insights of some rough-and- tumble at ChockABlock, but no. You are just going to have to find that out for yourselves, sorry. We talked about a few places you play, but there are also a whole load of clubs that are under the umbrella of funky. And again, as part of this making sure we are maybe reaching out to all of you guys who are not London born and bred, tell us about the difference between, say, a Cooly G funky night or something at Plastic People, or something you might find at the slightly grittier end of the scale.

Roska

I find there is two or three different types of funky event. You have got an R&B/funky event, where there is one room playing hip-hop and R&B, and then you have another room that has funky and garage. At those events you will hear tracks like “Head, Shoulders, Kneez & Toez,” nursery rhyme sort of stuff. And more the garage element, more for the girls, I would say. Then you’ve got raves where Cooly G will play, where there are all sorts of, how can I put it, even where I play as well, it is like dubstep-based producers and DJs that like the darker end of funky. That’s where I will play. It is more jeans, trainers, and dress how you woke up this morning sort of thing, where you don’t have to throw on aftershave or look good and impress. There’s no one to impress.

Emma Warren

Actually, Cooly G is similar to you as another person that people know about. She’s someone with her music who has risen above the parapet, and people will know her name without knowing the tunes inside out. Do you know her from South London?

Roska

I only started knowing her from about a year ago through funky. She was making funky, but what it was… it wasn’t really fitting into the sort of typical sound of funky. Even my stuff as well, it doesn’t 100% fit into what everybody would play. So, that’s why it kind of crosses over to garage, dubstep and a few others. Where we didn’t fit in there, we have kind of spread over to a few other genres, where you have got Kode 9 playing our tracks, and a few other people across the board.

Emma Warren

She has got music out on Hyperdub and her own stuff as well. What do you like about what she does?

Roska

I think Cooly’s tunes have got that mellow sort of effect, and I like the drum patterns as well. Although, with her drum patterns, like I was mentioning before, with mine, the ones that I like are more rolling, whereas hers have got that kind of broken feel to it, which is good as well. Even the singing as well, I know she does her own singing, which is pretty good.

Emma Warren

That’s something I wanted to ask you. Funky has a lot more vocals than dubstep, and lots of girls singing. If you think of other to areas of music, like, say for example, indie, it has suddenly become acceptable for boys to sing or have boys singing really beautifully, often quite high. If you think about Fleet Foxes or whatever, it has gone from not being very masculine to sing to kind of like the thing to do. Where are the boys, the male vocalists out there? Why aren’t they stepping up to the microphone?

Roska

They are hiding. They want to be masculine. [laughter]

Emma Warren

So, something has happened elsewhere in music, which has made it okay for boys to sing, but that doesn’t seem to be the case… Why is that? You said, they don’t want to sing because they want to be masculine, but why is that?

Roska

I’m only joking, I don’t know. There are a lot of singers out there, but maybe they are not interested in funky. In funky you find that a lot of singers come through and they really want to do R&B or pop. They come into funky and find it because it’s new and they can get in there and get a tune out there in the charts, then go on to what they really want to do.

Emma Warren

So really, you don’t want vocalists who see funky as a springboard to something else, do you? You want people who are in it because they’re bringing the right energy and feeling. Are there any vocalists that you consider to be in that latter camp, the ones that are really in it and fully feel it? It’s the thing for them rather than being a stepping stone to something else?

Roska

You’ve got Katy B, she’s done a lot of tunes. And even my vocalist Jamie George. There’s another singer A.L., they are probably sticking around. But they do a few other things as well, like R&B. It is a bit of a weird one, because there are a few singers about, but it’s like everybody looks to have an exclusive singer that has not been in the scene for a little while, and they end up going somewhere else.

Emma Warren

Do you reckon there are MCs, like grime MCs or just MCs generally, that can sing?

Roska

I haven’t come across one yet.

Emma Warren

I bet you any money they are there spitting bars in front of anyone, but I reckon some of them can sing. I reckon someone should step forward and name the singing MC. I guess this is a good time to hear a piece of music from you, perhaps something vocal. You mentioned Jamie George, but there is also a vocal track on your new album, so perhaps we can listen to both one after each other?

Roska

I’ll play the Jamie George one. This one’s called “Love 2nite.”

(music: Roska feat. Jamie George – “Love 2nite”)

Emma Warren

If your dad was a soundman, can you explain again to people who might not understand the terminology, what that means?

Roska

Basically, what I mean by soundman, my dad used to play in clubs and he used to take his whole soundsystem with him. Big massive speakers and his decks, his mixer, and they used to just roll in like a crew and they would go to the club, set up their soundsystem and then just play for the whole night up until the early hours of the morning. That was what they did and that’s what he specialized in.

Emma Warren

What was your dad’s crew?

Roska

I don’t remember what my dad’s crew was, but he went into another crew with my uncles and they were called Ecstasy, back in the day. That was a good 15-odd years ago.

Emma Warren

So this is ’70s reggae business when people like Shaka and Saxon were ruling the roost. Did they clash any of those guys who were there or was it a different area?

Roska

I think there were a slightly different area. I didn’t really delve into it too much, but I was always there when my dad was testing the music when I was really, really young. Even my uncles as well, I think I spent more time with my uncles who were wiring speakers with a soldering iron, stuff like that. I was around all those things when I was really, really young.

Emma Warren

I was talking to someone the other day, they were talking about reggae dances and how when they couldn’t get to sleep – their dad used to play at reggae dances – and they were taken down to the dance and when they got sleepy they took them home and put them to bed. Did you get taken to dances or the cutting house or anything?

Roska

I didn’t get taken to anything. I was grounded. I didn’t really keep in touch with my dad after a little while but that is my vague memories, him testing records and just seeing the big speakers. After that, I spent more time with my uncle in his studio and just working out how to make music. I’d be in there watching it getting set up during the day and you know when nighttime comes, you’re going to be in bed, elsewhere.

Emma Warren

So, did being around that give you technical inspiration as well? You just talked about the re-soldering of everything on the day and the ad-hoc modifications of the equipment.

Roska

They had big speakers. Now I’d just go to Digital Village and buy a set of speakers, it saves me the time. But it just gave me the insight of where they came from, their background and what they had to do because it wasn’t about money. Money wasn’t the greatest thing to have at that time. It was just about trying to make do with what they had and if they could find an old piece of chipboard, and just square it out and make a speaker out of it, then that’s what they would do.

Emma Warren

Time marches on, obviously, that’s a Marshall Jefferson lyric… “nothing stays the same.” Things do change and, obviously, it isn’t just about looking at the past, and it being perfect and now it is rubbish or whatever, but do you think there is something about being involved in music, where you have to make everything and make do with what you’ve got, which somehow has some qualities that you don’t get when you can just go down to Digital Village and buy something?

Roska

I think it does. I think it gives it more enjoyment and, obviously, you are saving money as well, but I think it gives it that more enjoyment. You have to go and source your material to go and make what you need, make those speakers that you need for that night. I think that’s what they got out of it, and they enjoyed the music as well.

Emma Warren

Have you come across anyone in the kind of modern environment who is doing something similar in terms of making their own stuff? Or, I suppose, people do modify equipment, but is there anyone that you can think of that has that element in what they are doing?

Roska

I think times have gone a bit far now to where it is so easy to obtain something, and I think prices have gone down as well. I was speaking to Zinc about it before, and he was saying it was so difficult back then. You either had to have your own studio, or you had to hire a studio. Whereas now, you can have a studio in your own home, so I think times have just advanced so much that it is easy to obtain those pieces of equipment without having to build it yourself and you save a lot of money.

Emma Warren

You mentioned just a minute ago about this idea of you hanging out the window with your aerial trying to get some reception. What were you trying to get reception of?

Roska

Rinse FM.

Emma Warren

Of which now you are part of the esteemed Team Rinse. And what were you listening to back in the day?

Roska

Me and my brother used to listen to a lot of Pay As U Go back in the day. A lot of Wiley as well, radio in the evenings. I lived in Thamesmead, which is just past Greenwich near the Dome, and reception was a bit thin there, so we used to have a load of hangers and hang them out. But that is what we used to listen to. There wasn’t really much happening in the south-east of London, it was maybe in east London where grime was. We had So Solid, which is in the south-west, but even the reception there was quite terrible. To listen to the stuff we wanted to listen to, we didn’t really have things like 1Xtra when I wanted to listen to it, Choice FM wasn’t playing the stuff I wanted to hear. So, we had to go to pirate radio to listen to what we wanted to hear.

Emma Warren

So, have you got something with you that will illuminate to us what you wanted to hear?

Roska

Sure. This is a track by Wiley and Roll Deep, it’s called “Wickedest Thing.”

(music: Roll Deep feat. Geeneus & Wiley – “Wickedest Ting”)

Emma Warren

That was on Grimey Volume 1 , wasn’t it? But actually, what I think is more interesting is thinking about the various different personalities on that tune. So, how aware were you as a listener of the different personalities on that record and the different styles they were bringing to it?

Roska

I mean, with this tune it brought everything that I wanted to hear, basically. It had my influence of bashment on there, you’ve got Flow Dan on there with his talking patois, Jamaican sort of language. You’ve got Wiley as well, and he’s got a sort of a cockney, English flow on there and everything was just there. Even the track as well, the instrumental, it’s quite a simple beat. But if you listen to it, it had what I wanted to hear on there, in terms of the drum pattern from the kick and even from the snare as well, just a simple snare.

Emma Warren

Who’s your favorite MC in Roll Deep?

Roska

My favorite has always been Wiley. Again, his flow is simple, but he can fit in what he needs to fit in, and he’s really smart in what he says as well, so that’s why I like him.

Emma Warren

So during the grimy times, or early grime, what else were you listening to?

Roska

I was listening to El-B as well, El-B and J Da Flex, this one’s called “The Club.”

Emma Warren

So before we press play on that, can you tell us for people who might not know, how different is this from the Roll Deep end of things? How was it at the time, because although it is seen as separate at the time, there was an awful lot of overlap between what we are going to hear and what we just heard?

Roska

With this track it is like, this is like early dubstep, I would say. Whereas the more darker end, even though what I just played is classed as grime, it was garage as well. So even though it’s not as uplifting as a vocal tune that you might hear, it’s not as dark as this one will be. Sounds a bit mad, but yeah. You’ll understand when I play it anyway.

(music: Ghost – “The Club”)

Emma Warren

Do you think the fact that people have to pay to go on pirate radio, the fact that you were contributing to the upkeep of it, had some impact on the way people connected with what they were doing?

Roska

I think so. Some stations you go on, or that I used to go on when I was younger, you’d go there and wonder, “What am I actually paying for?” Because the actual equipment was quite crappy. But, I don’t know, it just depends on where you go. Most places you go to, they look after it well, and you can see where your subs are going, and I think that helps as well and you feel positive about going and you look after the equipment and stuff.

Emma Warren

So your two or three months on Horror FM, was that your typical pirate station, a hole in a wall in someone’s kitchen up a tower block? Or was it less cartoonish than that?

Roska

I think my one was in a printing place in Battersea.

Emma Warren

An industrial estate?

Roska

Sort of, it was just like one building that was on a dead end road, and it’s like a printing place. And you go up the stairs and it’s just in one little room and it looks like a cupboard. You go in there and it’s just baking, you can actually cook yourself in there, it’s that hot. It was like that. Where else did I go? I think Horror was the main one we went to, and I went to another one, an internet-based one, on the outskirts of London. I won’t mention their name because they are still open, but their subs were a bit higher and I was paying petrol to get there, and it was a bit more hassle. But I think quite a lot of MCs and DJs had been on there that I knew that were quite big as well. It was good to be on a station that had a lot of status that had big artists on there. That would give you that more exposure, because those people that were on there, you would have their listeners locked in because they’d be wondering when they’d be on there next.

Emma Warren

So you joined the Rinse team, what, last summer?

Roska

Roughly about last summer, but I was doing cover shows for about six months. I was waiting for a slot, but I was getting a bit impatient and I wanted to jump on a few other stations instead. But I kind of just waited it out for a bit and kept calling Rinse management to see if there was anything available, and something came up in the summer, which was pretty good.

Emma Warren

It’s so funny when you listen to Rinse because everyone has got a different style, you know? You listen to Marcus Nasty and the first five minutes he might be threatening some promoter. I’m sure some of you might be aware of Marcus Nasty’s catchphrase, “Shittaaa.” But your show’s a little bit different from that, isn’t it?

Roska

My show’s a little bit laid back. I’ve done a few shows where I’ve just played my own stuff for two hours, or I’ll play whatever’s new and available. But again, it just boils down to the different styles. Marcus will play stuff that is on that edgy grimy element and then he’ll mix in a few of the sweeter vocals. Whereas mine is more darker that crosses over into dubstep and darker side of garage as well.

Emma Warren

What does it mean to you to be on Rinse?

Roska

To be on Rinse is definitely a good thing. Representing the new sound, I think that’s what it means to be on Rinse, because at the moment funky is still new. The sound that I play is still new as well. Rinse is all about having new artists and new genres of music, everything new and different styles, so I just represent that and that’s what Rinse represents, so that’s what it means.

Emma Warren

I guess Rinse are going for their license at the moment, and there’s a big petition on the website and there’s a lot of momentum towards them making that transition from online to legal. How would you feel about playing on legal Rinse? Licensed Rinse?

Roska

I’d be pretty happy. As far as we know, nothing’s going to change. It’ll all be the same. The only thing that will change is that we’re legal. As far as that, I’ll still be happy and I’ll keep representing Rinse wherever I go.

Emma Warren

Absolutely, because it really is the hub of everything that’s good. They do such a fantastic job of curating new music and reaching out to people and making sure the best people are on there.

Roska

It’s true. The majority of stations, even the DJs on legal radio stations, they listen to Rinse to get what we get and try and take away what we have and portray it on their stations.

Emma Warren

Geeneus once explained one of the things he does with Rinse on a regular basis is destroy and rebuild, where he gets the station to this point where it’s totally amazing and perfect, and decides that he wants to move on. So he’ll just dash everything. I guess, that’s kind of what he did around 2006, 2007, when it was predominantly dubstep, and then that shift happened again. And that’s a pretty radical way of operating. You make something brilliant, but you are always looking to make it different. I don’t really know what question is associated with that statement. But I suppose, do you find being on Rinse forces you to make sure you are on top of your game and always looking for different ways of doing things?

Roska

Not at the moment. I’d just say I’m keeping it as original as possible and just staying with my style. Because, like I said, it’s still pretty new and has got legs on it for the time being. We’ll just see what happens. With music it evolves, and hopefully I’m part of it when it evolves and changes into something else. But we’ll see what happens.

Emma Warren

Now, another thing that you’ve done a lot of is remixes. Not 50, but 15. And a lot of these remixes made quite a lot of impact in the outside world. Can we have a listen to one of your remixes? Perhaps the Four Tet one? Or something else, it’s up to you. You are the music maker.

Roska

I’ve done this one for Four Tet in October, November, I think it was. It’s called “Love Cry.” He released it in December with Joy Orbison’s mix as well.

(music: Four Tet – “Love Cry (Roska Remix)”)

Emma Warren

So what’s the process then? You are told you are going to do a remix, what do you do next?

Roska

What I do is, I didn’t hear the original at all beforehand anyway, so I just asked Four Tet for the parts to the track. Then I look through all the parts, delete all the parts I don’t like, and then keep what I want to keep, and then I’ll just work around what I’ve got. With this one, it’s not that I didn’t like the parts anyway, it’s just all I kept out of the whole thing was the female saying “love me.” I just kind of worked around that and kept it as simple as possible.

Emma Warren

Because some people will, when they get a remix, will have a track and then they’ll use the parts on the track. But are you saying that on this one your approach was to keep the parts of the track and then build a new piece around it?

Roska

Yeah. Sometimes. It depends how I feel, to be honest. I keep it as a hobby and I just try and enjoy it as much as possible and then work around it. If I want to make a complete new track around it, then I will do that. Otherwise there are some tracks, like I’ve done a remix for Zed Bias, “Neighbourhood,” and I took the original parts of the track and I used it. Because the original was such a great tune, I took those parts and emphasized on it more, rather than starting a new one because it wouldn’t make sense. It depends on what kind of track it is. If it’s a classic like “Neighbourhood,” it makes sense to use the original parts.

Emma Warren

Well, I guess we should hear another remix then.

Roska

I’ll play one, yeah. This is one that I’ve done for a label called Night Slugs. It’s called “Square One” and the original is by a guy called Mosca.

(music: Mosca – “Square One (Roska Remix)”)

Emma Warren

Do you have sense of how you want people to feel or respond when they hear your tunes?

Roska

Not at all. Like I said, with my music, the majority of the time I make it for myself. Even if I do a remix, I’ve had plenty of times when I’ve been asked to do a remix and they’ve said, “Oh, we’re not feeling it, it’s not what we’re after.” But if they are after a Roska remix, then why ask me to do something? At the end of the day it’s coming from how I feel at the time and how I want my music to sound.

Emma Warren

They should just build themselves a Roska robot, if that’s what they are after.

Roska

They should just ask me for the tag and then put it on their track!

Emma Warren

So we are going to hand it out to the floor, so if you guys have questions, now’s the time to formulate them and get them ready to ask. But you’ve got something else to play us from the album, haven’t you?

Roska

Yeah, I can play anything. There’s 11 tracks on this album, give me a number from one to 11 someone and I’ll play it. One, yeah? I played one already, sorry. Seven, yeah? Alright, cool. Seven sounds very similar to number one. Four, yeah? Alright, cool, that’ll do.

(music: Roska – “Squark”)

Roska

That was called “Squark.” You can tell why, yeah?

Emma Warren

It’s nice to hear those sounds. It’s great to hear those big, wavy synth lines. But it’s nice to hear the idea but done slightly differently. But enough of what I want to ask, who has a question for Mr. Roska?

Audience member

Hi. It might seem like a very basic question, but what you were saying before about layering kicks and snares, often the problem of phasing, especially with kicks when you layer them, the signal phases and causes distortion. Do you have a tip for how to prevent that?

Roska

When I use different kicks I’ll use one that is an airy sort of kick and I’ll use another one that’s sort of a tight-knit kick. If you haven’t got the punch in your larger kick, the smaller kick will give it that extra edge. And obviously, I mess about with the volumes as well just to make sure. And what I do as well is, if you want one kick to be the main kick, you take the edge off the first one so you maybe lower it. So in terms of looking at it in volume, the first kick would look like that [shows fade in/out], and the first one will be like that.

Audience member

I was just interested to know what kind of things you use to get your sounds. You said you like to make things quickly, because you have ideas in your head. Do you like to source things and spend time finding the sounds, or do you get straight into it and pick something that works right then and that’s it?

Roska

I do a bit of both. Sometimes I may spend a whole day looking for specific sounds and then save it as a preset and use it later on. A lot of the time, I do just experiment and whatever goes goes. That’s how I get my sort of enjoyment, just messing about at the time.

Audience member

You kind of fit into a particular genre of music, so how do you do it when you get to work with artists from, like jazz, soul, rock? And if I’m someone that isn’t fixed into a particular genre and versatile, how do I find my own place?

Roska

In terms of finding your own place, that’s down to whatever sort of style you want to portray. Maybe sometimes you have to set yourself a template up in terms of how that sounds. As an example, if you are doing hip-hop, for instance, start off with a simple hip-hop drum pattern and add your own interpretation on top of that, and take that away. What I’ve done is, I worked with a guy called Sam from this company called the Carter Project, he’s a jazz musician. I didn’t bring the track with me, but he plays just jazz instruments, so what I’ve done was I set my own drum pattern up and I gave it to him and he worked on top of that and it gave us that sound. It kind of fits in with what I specialize in, and it’s got that element of jazz into it, so it brings that influence into it instead.

Audience member

Do you mix and master your own stuff, and if you do, what software or hardware do you use?

Roska

I usually mix down in FruityLoops. And if I master it, I go and get it mastered at Music House. My album was mixed down at Masterpiece – the tracks I played off my album were all mastered there. Some of the ones I played, like the “Square One” remix, “Feeline,” they weren’t even mastered. I couldn’t afford it. When I first started, I couldn’t afford it. What I used to do was, I would listen to a mastered track already and then I would listen out to how it sounds, and then I would mix my track down as much as possible to get that similar sound.

Audience member

This is not related to your music, I just want to see what you feel inside – what would you rather do, travel every single country in the whole world or go to the moon?

Roska

Depends how I’m feeling. I’d love to go to every single country, just to see how it is. But the moon sounds quite interesting so I’d probably go there.

Emma Warren

I guess you’re all feeling shy today. All that leaves us to do is to say Roska, thank you very much.

[applause]