Part of a new wave of house producers coming to the genre from dubstep, AkaAkaRoar resident DJ Lorca has seen his tracks appear on Essential Mixes from both Modeselektor and Scuba. His new single on Dummy follows releases on über-hip labels Left_Black, Third Ear and Live Ones. Not bad for a 22 year old university student.
Have you always made house-based dance music?
When I started I was making dubstep. That’s the first electronic music I liked, so I started making all the wobbly stuff. I used to play in bands and I’ve been playing guitar for 10 or 15 years now. That was much more musical than what I was doing with the dubstep, which was just making cool sounds. Dubstep just got boring. It’s a bit limited. I wanted to be a bit more musical and appeal to a wider audience. Dubstep was a bit of a fad, it wasn’t quality music.
So do you think people are turning away from dubstep now?
Yeah, I think so. It was exciting when it blew up and now it’s gone stale. It got commercialised and then it went bad. I’m sure what was good about it does still exist in some places, but it’s not as exciting as it was. Dubstep definitely changed everything. It’s rubbed off on things, ‘cos this house music that’s coming out now is different, it’s not the same.
What are the differences between mid 90s deep house and what is being made now?
Well it’s definitely influenced by dubstep, so the structures aren’t as flat. It’s not just for DJs to play out. There is a lot of stuff that you can listen to the whole way through and not get bored, whereas 90s house was just mixable stuff to play out in the club. I guess it’s more musical and it’s easier when you have to listen to a full track of it.
Do you make your music to listen to primarily at home or in a club?
Always to play in a club, but I try and make it so you could listen to it elsewhere as well. Before this Dummy record some of my other stuff wasn’t being picked up by DJs. I don’t think it’s big club music. It’s not that mixable and it’s got vocals over it so it might be hard for some DJs. But I’m trying to make some more instrumental stuff at the moment. I’m DJing a lot, so I wanna play out my own music.
Do you play a lot of your own productions in your sets?
I try to but I don’t have that many yet. I’ve only got about 10 tracks as Lorca and obviously I’m bored of some of them ‘cos I made them so long ago. A lot of my set is 125-130bpm house music – Pearson Sound, Scuba, anything on Hot Flush. Joy Orbison is a big influence. Jack Dixon just put out a really good EP. There’s so much good music coming out right now.
What other plans have you got?
I want to do my own label ‘cos I have a load of re-fixes that I wouldn’t be able to release properly, so I’m just going to do them on white label. And I want to sign up music as well. I’m trying to get mates involved that are just starting out, encouraging them to keep sending me music. I want to get new producers, people who have only had one release out, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to sign them.
What are the most important things to do to break yourself as a DJ?
Just make the music, that’s the most important thing. There are only a few DJs going round the circuit at the moment that have managed to break through without making any tracks, so creating tunes is definitely the main focus. I’m just slow at it. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so it takes me a long time. But I do update my Facebook everyday trying to keep people involved.
