Introducing: Mosca

You don’t have to look that far in the music press to find that ‘hard to define’ is almost becoming a genre of its own at the moment; it’s like producers amalgamating multiple scenes is a resoundingly accepted thing now, which is great. There are so many DJs who, after first being inspired by a clearly defined scene, have gone onto build their knowledge and influence to simply create sounds which are truly just a representation of themselves and less an adaptation of a sound already out there. Examples are rife for the referencing but for now we’ll just point you in the direction of T. Williams, who we spoke with on the blog about this same thing just last month, and then there’s Pangaea, Pearson Sound and most recently and (internet) famously, Skream and his move into the realm of disco. This is a topic that you can’t help but find yourself contemplating in relation to BBC Radio 1 DJ, Mosca; a man who cut his teeth within the belly of London’s grimey house scene with the likes of Marcus Nasty and Rinse FM playing as big a part in his first reaches to the world of electronic music as the Night Slugs label did. Today he’s more quick to reference Hessle Audio boss Ben UFO and New York cornerstone, DJ Qu as those who he’s looking to now for excellence in DJing and when it comes to his own sets he’s made it his agenda to rep techno on the UK’s most iconic of radio stations. Whilst Mosca’s reputation had been precisely chiselled through his club and radio DJing, his real strength comes from the wonderfully varied production he’s been putting out since 2010. There’s literally a handful of records out there to his name but each and every one has felt idiosyncratic to Mosca’s personality, masterfully commanding the amalgamation of influences around him. Above all Mosca’s tracks sound iconic. They’re the crystalline transmissions you remember out of the sheet noise of today’s heavily rotating scene and that’s what makes him suitable to sit with Craig Richards and his staple of artists chosen for his The Nothing Special club nights. Before Mosca returns to Farringdon this Saturday to join Richards and Morphosis live in Room Two, we took some time out to get the amorphic DJ better on the blog. From when you broke into the scene, it seemed quite novelty to be crossing over between house and grime – it seems like it’s almost its own thing now that deep house / grime influenced music. In 2013 where would you say you stand musically now? Would you say you’ve moved deeper into techno? It's difficult because stuff inevitably changes - I still have love for a lot of early grime but I think by now, knowing a bit more about the behind-the-scenes aspect of it, grime is beyond resuscitation. So yeah, in 2013 I'm running more techno than ever, partly because of the show on Radio 1 where I'm the only DJ that plays techno and feel a kind of duty there almost you know? I would say I play underground house, techno and the rest... the rest being anything from old skool electro, UK garage, and tribal bits through to world music, hip hop and reggae, but I try and throw those bits in sparingly and just keep a rolling vibe throughout my sets. I try and create an overall sound of moodiness twinned with sexiness if that makes sense? A restrained kind of energy... Dissonance, tension, balance... Sounding like a prick now... I think the thing with your tracks is that they have their own personality, there isn’t such a volume of them out there but the kind that you always remember the ones you have heard – do you try and keep what you put out limited to make sure they’re always this special? Thank you! No, it's just a case of being overly picky. I'd like to put out more, not flood the place obviously but a more regular flow... Leaving it too long between releases creates this build up, this anticipation, people think that you're doing it on purpose to then hit them with a life changing record, whereas you might wanna just put out something fairly under the radar, just music you love done properly, no unnecessary hype. What releases are you working on now, do you have much scheduled for release? Next up is a pair of remixes for Ryan Crosson, Lee Curtiss and Cesar Merveille under their new Sweatshop Boys alias. The tune is called Wide World, it's with Jem Cooke and I've made a deep dub as well as a ghetto house mix. Going back, who or what’ve been your biggest influences? I’ve heard Marcus Nasty’s name dropped in previous interviews… Marcus in 08/09 was a big influence yeah. Taking US house tracks like Boriken Soul and mixing them with rugged UK stuff, re-contextualising and just rewriting the house rulebook, at least it felt like that at the time. But I've been influenced by everyone from DJ Qu to Ben UFO... half the time influences come from hearing something you don't like, it could be anything, a car crash of a mix, a track that is spoiled by a commercial white noise buildup... sometimes it takes other people mistakes as well as your own for you to truly learn what it is you love about music. And Marcus is a Rinse DJ – did you always to aspire to DJ on the station yourself? Have you always wanted to be a radio DJ as well as a club one? How do those weigh up in terms of enjoyment for you? Definitely, before Radio 1 I was thinking Rinse might be a good look, I thought I could bring something different to the roster. Radio is a weird one though, I much prefer clubs. Clubs over headphones, clubs over music in the car, clubs over studio... The club is the right place to hear my type of music. There's no energy like it. But radio is a great way to keep on top of promos, to dig for more records, to gauge reactions, essentially to make your club sets better. And now you’ve just started your BBC Radio 1 Residency, congratulations. Have you been happy with the show so far? Thanks, yeah I'm loving the new time slot as I have two hours instead of one and more shows, so more music that I'm feeling. Plus I think it's a good way for people to get a snapshot of what I'm about, as we were saying earlier there's not much in the way of a back catalogue, so it's a good way to know what to expect if they come and see me in the club. How do you source your tunes? How much does the promo person have influence over what makes your sets? It's always changing. I go through periods of not listening to any other DJs or radio, not even talking to other people about music, and then sometimes I'll be in tunespotter mode, painstakingly going through tracklists. But in general, I have a few promo people who I trust and I try and unsubscribe from the rest, especially after the BBC thing, I was getting sent all types of shit I would never touch. I just try and dig as much as possible and learn about music myself. That way it stays with you and I really believe music should be an intensely personal thing, especially in the world we live in today where there's so much out there and so many people telling you what to listen to. Any advice for aspiring producers who are wanting to get themselves some more airplay? Well I feel like an aspiring producer myself to be honest... Some stuff I've learned though: do it yourself. Like I was just saying, music should be your own thing. I know that advice can come across a bit Hollywood, a bit 'keep it real', but in the end that advice should be as important at the start of your career as at the end. Promo etiquette becomes more important as well - try and include a bit of information about the release, previews are 100% needed, but don't go over the top. If a DJ has 800 unread promos to deal with he or she won't have time to read about how you had a couple of drum lessons at school. To give the blog readers an idea of what they might hear when you join us in RM2 in June, what records are at the top of your rotation now, the ones you can’t stop listening to? A couple I can't stop playing are actually older records I've come back to, Deep N Raw by Rootstrax... …and Trevoga by KiNK Lots of new stuff as well, like Markus Suckut's forthcoming LP called DNA For more info and tickets to see Mosca this Saturday click here.