Ambient - Drifting Away
It was 1986 – I was listening to the much-treasured record of Simple Minds, New Gold Dream, when Aco – a neighbour to which I owe my alternative musical education – came in and handed me a record. He just said: put this on and be surprised. It was Oxygène, an album from Jean Michelle Jarre. I listened to it, and then I listened to it again, and again, and again: Aco knew exactly what kind of sound I am going to be crazy after. After only couple of days I bought all the records from Jean Michelle Jarre and listened to all of them every evening for at least one year. In the following couple of years, I discovered – mostly through Aco – another players in this musical genre like Brian Eno, Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, Mike Oldfield, Pink Floyd, Kraftwerk – the list is fairly long.
And there comes my deep appreciation for this kind of ethereal music, during which my minds drift away and travel through those diffuse, yet on a deep level highly emotional landscapes in my inner world. Its no wonder: when I started with creating own music I firstly started experimenting with deep sound design to produce those beautiful soundscapes which I could listen for hours. One of my most inspiring examples is definitely “Music for Airports” from Brian Eno. But unlike Brian Eno in this brilliant peace of ambient music I try sometimes to escape that complete diffuse nature of this genre by mixing the pure electronic music with classical elements, which bring those emotional hints and components into the game and make the peace of music a kind of crossover between “pure” ambient in Brian Eno’s sense and score in Hans Zimmer’s style.
Downbeat - Triphop - Dubstep
Belgrad 1995: I was working in a bar under the Bridge to Pancevo, it was one of night shifts. After cleaning everything up I sat down ad 5 o’clock in the morning outsind in the garden to watch sunrise, it was summer, a joint was already rolled up. And then that song came up on the local radio and made that one moment unforgettable: it was Vocab from Fugees. In that very moment I discovered hip hop, and my musical preference for this genre was born. It did not last long until I discovered House of Pain, Dr. Dre, 2Pac and the whole subculture within this musical genre. Belgrade was an excellent place to discover all kinds of subcultures at those times. Later in the same year I also discovered trip-hop. I was visiting my girlfriend in Pancevo, she played for me Karmacoma from Massive Attack – I was at once in love with this music style, too. Portishead, Tricky, Air, Groove Armada and others have been kind of logical consequence. My preferred workflow for making hip-trip-hop songs is firing up Maschine from Native Instruments and finishing it on same day without touching the computer mouse once – I just loooooove this device and this old school approach to producing music on the fly.
Dubstep found its place in my creative crafting relatively late. I heard songs of Skrillex, Excision, Datsik etc., but the influence of EDM in their adaptation of dubstep was kind of too mainstream for me. Jeah, I must admit I hate EDM. Hence, it was not until 2013 when I listened to Knife Party, EP 100% No Modern Talking in a bar in Frankfurt am Main: jeeez, this was rock ’n’ roll. Those aggressive and forceful basslines caught definitely my attention, so I went home and thought what the best synthesizer would be for making them. My search in internet was pretty quick: Massive from Native Instruments of course. Since 2007 I was using this synth and loved everything about it, so my first tries in dubstep were easy. One of very interesting aspects of this genre – aside from strong syncopated rhythms and wobble bass lines which I like very much – is its unpredictability in the progress of song and the dynamic contrast between individual elements. Whereas in “normal” techno song one can implement one, two, three or four breaks for building up that tension and releasing it, in dubstep you can do it as often as you want so to speak. The weirder it gets the better
Upbeat - Minimal - House -Techno
It was late summer 1994 in Bosnien, Novi Grad – a couple of friends of mine came by for a prolonged spiritual session including listening to Pink Floyds for hours, smoking joints and drinking some bad but strong booze – we liked to cover all bases. The bell rang, my big friend Emil was standing at the door, holding couple of tapes in his hand and smiling at me . He was another important person in my life regarding my musical education. Through him I learned the whole grunge scene at that time like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden etc. But now – I felt it – something new was coming. Emil introduced me Prodigy’s “Experience” and “Music for the Jilted Generation”, so I expanded my preferences with electronic dance music. The real “kick” or better “hi-hat” came a couple of years later.
War started in Bosnien, and after about a year living without electricity in a war zone I escaped to Belgrade. The best thing about it: I got out of bus and only couple of hours later I stood promising high at a big fat rave party. Goa Trance came with all rage from Israel over France and was rocking across Europe at that time, summer 1995. I stood there deeply confused with all lights, noises, fast and vast social life, and then she came. A 808 hi-hats came through noise and took me on this very long journey through the realm of electronic music, more specifically techno, minimal, tech & deep house, pretty many styles above 110- 115 bpm. One of my preferred subgenre is minimal tech house, which again happens to develop from time to time in unespected directions. Playing around is my big virtue.