Ahead of the release of Simbio EP (RWX03) on Rawax Records, we had an intriguing chat with two of the Romanian finest wizards: Livio & Roby. For the occasion, they also mixed Trommel Podcast #040 straight from their studio.
Hi guys and welcome on Trommel! You just finished a 9-date South America tour, what have been the best highlights?
Hello there and thank you for inviting us on this series. The tour was very exciting and challenging from the beginning. It took a lot of work to make this tour so diverse and we really enjoyed it from the early stages, we never had such a long tour in South America. Each and every one of the gigs was nice and special, it’s difficult to pick highlights because all was so good. Though Panama and Bogota were full of energy and intensity.
From a first listen, the new podcast is a killer one! Can you tell us more about the music present in the mix?
Well, thank you, we are really happy you enjoyed it. Usually we put a lot of time in selecting the music for a podcast, as we really like to sort out the material for our mixes, it’s a special stage of the process. Lately, we pick tracks from friends and combine with some of our own tracks or edits, old stuff or whatever is suitable. Sometimes we even make one or two new tracks to fit or to connect some parts of the mix, in order to make it coherent.
You are two-third of Premiesku. Can you tell us more on how the project started and how it evolved?
Oh well, that started long time ago. It’s a very special connection, we clicked immediately and all felt we really wanted to begin doing a live act. It took a while until that happened, but after some work, we eventually managed to put all the details together. Maybe 9 years ago we officially launched the project. It’s been quite an experience, we always wanted to explore a true live performance, following of our live jam sessions from the studio. We put a lot of work in developing the project and we introduced ourselves properly by putting out some releases in 2009 under the Premiesku alias and we haven’t stopped from there. We’re continuously developing and changing the live act.
What kind of equipment are you using on the road for your LIVE sets?
As you may know, we are not using any computers for our performances, so for this reason, our live show is rather technical. We depend on many machines, samplers, synths, sequencers and so on. It’s a complex environment where we can build up our live acts. You can see it in the pictures actually, the main point is to adapt on each situation and for this reason we had to develop it in time, learning from what went good or wrong.
Tier records, your new-born imprint, hit the store recently with the first issue and was a great success. What is the rationale behind the label and what can we expect in future?
We always delayed the label start-up, so to say. I suppose we needed the right moment and it came eventually. We chose the name Tier because we liked the idea of levelling stages, it’s more like a gaming concept. For Tier’s first release we invited Ion Ludwig and Direkt as remixers, for the second it will be Priku remixing and the third one we will have remixes from Fumya Tanaka and Thomas Melchior as ToFu, that being said, with our label we want to showcase talent that fits our musical journey.
Romanian sound defined and heavily influenced the last two-three years at least. Can you tell us your opinion on its quick development and on the amazing generation of artists that pushed this sound?
We can easily say that the Romanian scene is thriving right now, there are a lot of nice events all over the country. As you said, in the last few years it has ascended and you can feel that vibe here. The events are standing out more and more. There are new kids popping out all the time, every year sees new and talented producers and DJs who are getting more known and actually they do an amazing job. I’m really happy to see this happening because I really appreciate quality and these people are just looking to get the best out of it, nothing else. Way too many names to mention.
You are quite prolific producers, with only this year EP on Tier, The Rabbit Hole, Drumma and KUSI with Rawax on its way. How much studio-time do you spend and how does it look like regarding gear?
We like to spend our time in the studio, even better to say, most of our time. We tend to have the weekends occupied, so during the week you can find us in the studio. We like to experiment and change things usually. We use all kinds of gear, old and new, analog and digital. We like to jam on all kinds of stuff, of course there are some favourites there. Usually, all the machines have their own place and will have a purpose in a certain moment.
What is next for you both from DJ and production point of views?
We definitely continue what we do now, both producing and touring. For the moment we are working on a new Premiesku album. We are really excited about that, as we haven’t put out an album as Premiesku since 2012, it’s been a while so I would say we are rather eager about it. 2019 is approaching fast and we have some new exciting projects and ideas for the next year.
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