Produced at different stages over the course of an entire year, the Conscious EP is the sound of two producers at the peak of their powers.
In one corner is Rossko, the London-born, Berlin-based longstanding Fuse resident, best known for his knack for unearthing cutting-edge house and techno sounds — and a man who values a quality-over-quantity approach to production.
In the other is Per Hammar, the Sweden-born, Berlin-based resident of Malmo’s much-respected Kiloton party and the owner of the Dirty Hands and 10YEARS labels.
Together, theirs is a way of working that brilliantly highlights what can happen when collaborations work so well in the studio. With their debut EP coming to light soon on Fuse sublabel, Infuse, we grabbed the lads for a quick chat, as they talked us through their own story on the making of ‘Unconscious’, the lead track on the EP that we’re premiering here.
Without further ado, here’s what they had to say…
Rossko on ‘Unconscious’:
“Per and I first connected at a gig we played together at Watergate. I was battering ‘Lindström’, a track of his, so it was so nice to put a face to a name. We both lived in Berlin so you can guess the rest. The next 2 months we spent jamming in the studio”.
“Per is the Swedish professor with acute studio knowledge and myself, I’m more focused on DJ’ing, so it’s easy for me to transfer the energy of the dance floor into the studio. It’s a great balance which has also blossomed into a great friendship. ‘Unconscious’ was a trial and error process; making a solid A1 is harder than you think. The track is fused around funk, techno and house and I asked myself, ‘What do the ravers want at 3am in the morning?’ The monster breakdown could have proved a bit obvious, but with Per’s studio equipment and technique, alongside my direction, it just all fell into place.
The best feedback is from the dancefloor: 2018 was spent testing it at almost every gig of every size, space and situation. And the feedback was always the same. It also got the thumbs up from the FUSE camp. Strictly heads down, hands up vibes”.
Per Hammar on ‘Unconcious’:
The whole release is the result of 1 year in my studio, jamming and recording with Rossko. After countless hours of sweating and editing and a long period of road testing the track on our tours, we’re finally dropping our first collaboration on Infuse.
During one of our lunch breaks, while walking to our favourite Jamaican lunch restaurant, we found a box of trash on the sidewalk (or “zu verschenken/to gave away”.) You can just write that on your trash in Berlin and then it’s okay to dump it on the street. Classic Neukölln style. This cassette with relaxation/hypnosis exercises through a S-01 akai sampler and Roland RE-301 made the vocal part of the track. For all little percs, glitches and noises we used an Ukranian USSR drum machine, Форманта УДС (Formanta UDS). A lot of Vermona Filter Lancet too + a rolling x0xb0x bass. You can also hear a Yamaha DX-27 and a few Volca Keys.
Since we both played every weekend during the process, we had a few opportunities to test the track for the crowd and take notes, then meet up in the studio the week after with our collected feedback and work on the track based on that.
In the first version of the track, we kept a longer take of the speech from the cassette. When I played it out, I felt that we needed more pressure so it would be less like one of these travelling tracks. That’s one of the things that developed during the process. When the lead chords got introduced in the later versions together with a more stripped vocal, we felt like the track was starting to get wrapped up. Anyway, this is the end result. Hope you enjoy!
Rossko & Per Hammar’s ‘Unconscious’ is out 29/03 via Infuse.
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