Five Things with Rodriguez Jr.

I grew up in a small town in the south of France. My first contacts with electronically generated sounds were on the radio: Jarre, Kraftwerk, Art Of Noise… they have shaped my love for melodies and sound textures. I eventually got into dance music with acts such as Inner City and Lil Louis in the early ’90s. I actually was into pretty much anything coming from Detroit or Chicago. Later, Warp Music has also been a founding label: LFO, Aphex Twin, Boards Of Canada.

2. Inspirations

I try to keep my spectrum of influences as wide as I can. Inspiration can be anywhere, really, from old jazz records to experimental performances in an art museum or regular pop music on the radio. I am still very inspired [by] the dance music from Detroit – this blend of black music grooves with emotional synthetic landscapes. For instance, Carl Craig is still one of my heroes with his forward-thinking music.

3. Your Crew

I started to produce music in 1995 while studying mathematics at the university. I was part of a techno band called The Youngsters. After a couple of well-received techno releases on a small French label, we met Laurent Garnier and joined his world-famous label, F-Communications, in 2000. I eventually started to work on my solo project in 2006 and joined the Mobilee Records crew thanks to Anja Schneider and Ralf Kollmann. I feel really blessed that I’ve been able to make music production a full-time job for more than 15 years now.

4. The Music You Make And Play

I perform my music live onstage. That’s quite a different challenge than a regular DJ set, as I only play my own music, which is a blend of house and techno music with a twist of minimalistic melodies from time to time. I also keep on working in the studio every day and am currently working on a follow-up to my last EP Chrysalism and on my forthcoming album.

5. Music, Right Here, Right Now

Being a music producer is technically easier than ever thanks to the democratisation of technology. That’s a great opportunity for loads of young talents, but it also ends up in an overloaded and saturated music scene with thousands of new tracks being released every day. That’s obviously exciting and stimulating, though I think we need to find back some kind of filters in order to connect the music consumer to the right content he’s looking for. I guess proper music curation is going to be the next big thing.