Los Angeles DJ/Producer R/D (label: The Designed Disorder) is loading up his audio weapons and taking aim at the dance floor while commanding you to get down dirty and rock! To get you properly lubed up for this, I AM A LASER is the joint where you can download a free mini mix of his upcoming EP titled Cricket and get the scoop on what the crunk he was thinking when he made it.

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R/D :: Cricket EP Mini Mix

Here’s the interview we got as he was tuning up his lab for another onslaught. +!+!+!+

LZR: Tell us about the mini-mix, from your upcoming Cricket EP. When is that going to be released? Where will it be available? How many tracks will on the EP?

R/D: The Mini-Mix is a quick mixup of the tracks featured on the Cricket EP.  It’s a 3 track, digital EP and will be available on iTunes, Beatport, Addictech.com and other music download sites. It should be available within 30 days!

LZR: What’s your musical history? Were you playing with the Glitch Mob for a while?

R/D: Hah, actually no, but I get that a lot. The Glitch Mob are my tight homies, I’ve known them all for a long time.  I was living with Ed (edIT) and Josh (Ooah) right when they were getting the Mob off the ground. We were playing a bunch of the same festivals and the Glitch Mob was more of a collective then. I was just a part of the GM homie crew. But they quickly took off, formulating their sets into a sick multi-player, DJ/live performance, and it became clear that the Glitch Mob was definitely about those core guys.

I actually got my start over a decade ago, DJing breaks and experimental electro. I started a collective with my homie T.L. Smith called the Experimental Liquor Museum (ELM).  We threw tons of shows in LA back in the day, featuring all the IDM acts of the era. We got on bills with Squarepusher, Luke Vibert, Plaid, Jamie Lidell, Prefuse 73, and so many more. It was such an incredible time for us.

I played strictly vinyl back then. Eventually I started making my own tracks, but it wasn’t until the advent of DJ software that I could play them out. I skipped over the whole CD-J era and went straight for the laptop. I remember playing Aphex Twin Druqs, slowing it down to 125 BPM in Traktor and just losing my mind. That was my shit for a while.

I went on a mini European tour back in 2003 and played live shows out of Ableton 1.0. It had just come out and was SO archaeic compared to now. I really couldn’t get down with it so I just kept rocking Traktor DJ on the lappy. A few years ago I almost hung up my hat. I got tired of playing the same style and there really wasn’t a crowd for it. I basically retired until Ed turned me on to rocking Ableton again. I was pretty inspired by a whole new genre of west coast DJ’s who were rocking crowds with super slow tempos and I got way back into it. I started cutting up my favorite tracks, re-editing them and taking just the parts I liked, then rocking them in a DJ set with my own tracks. I played a bunch of festivals for a while, then got obsessed with film Sound Design and went into retirement (once again) for most of last year.  I recently came out of my hole though, and I’m on fire!  I can’t make Music fast enough! Now all I want to play are my own tunes, so my sets are 100% original, all my own tracks that I DJ and sample out of Ableton.

LZR: As you live in LA would you say that your sound, this EP, has an LA sound character to it?

R/D: Everything I make has LA all over it. I think it’s mostly in the tempo. The LA electronic music scene has always played slower. Even back in the 90’s we were rocking electro at 120 bpm when the rest of the world was jacking to 140. Now days people are rocking out to 90bpm (or even below if you love dubstep).  That shit was unheard of back in the day! I love it. It’s the tempo I’ve always wanted to rock.

It’s weird though, having been through multiple era’s of electronic music in this city, what was considered ‘LA’ about 6 years ago is nothing like today. But yah, for today’s steez, I definitely rep LA in my music. Maybe more so now than ever. It’s warmer, brighter, funkier, more upbeat yet laid back in tempo. Just like our pace of life.

LZR: As related to beat making and the electronic music genre, does LA have a style, one that has emerged as distinct from say SF or elsewhere?

R/D: Well, a place like SF has much a more deep rooted electronic scene, but their style changes much more quickly.  SF is more liable to latch onto a trend like dubstep, for instance, and then a few years later get obsessed with the next shit. LA has a longer lasting trend-time but as a city it’s more rock based. The electronic scene is either fused with rock, complete fucking cheese or it’s way underground. The underground scene in LA has really dispersed in recent years.  There used to be a unity in styles that would draw HUGE numbers to an underground electronic music event on a consistent basis, but LA is such a melting pot, it’s become inundated with so many styles of electronic music that it’s hard to pinpoint an LA style. Honestly, I think guys like the Glitch Mob, Nosaj Thing, Gaslamp Killer, Flying Lotus etc. are putting LA back on the map in that respect.  Hopefully we all are!

One thing is certain though; ‘Hipster’ has completely taken over. You will see the Hipster steez at virtually every music event there is. I’ve seen a Hipster in the tightest skinny jeans possible, with buddy-holly glasses, a plaid scarf and handlebar mustache bumping Lil’ Wayne on his Mo-ped boombox.  Shit’s crazy. You don’t know who’s who anymore!

LZR: All music exists in space. What is the Cricket EP’s space?

R/D: Straight up Space Funk!

LZR: I’ve been really interested lately in the idea of Vision. Like in photography you have to be selective about what you are placing in the lens, therefore excluding huge amounts of items to focus upon and highlight something that you what to amplify. What is it through your style, or this EP,  that you want the listener to receive? Is there an element that you are highlighting in the production that in other music forms it might be missed? Is there a certain color that goes with this? Would it be a particular scene in a movie or setting?

R/D: Ok, scene: you’re chilling on the moon with 2 of your best homies.  It’s the future so you don’t have to worry about the fact that there’s no air, but you get all the benefit’s of anti-gravity.  You bounce up to a colony on the edge of the darkside and they’re having the most epic dance party on Earth, errr, I mean the Moon. It’s dark, it’s light, the music is thumping through space and you are high on some extra-terrestrial shit. You instantly realize life is better on the moon and you wonder why the fuck you never knew about it, until right now.

LZR: Just another angle to the Vision question above: Art, in all its forms is like an accent. It gives your eye, your ear, your living experience a moment to have extreme focus upon a single color, a person, a group of items, or arrangement of notes and motifs to bring about a singular reaction/sensation/mood/emotion.

R/D: Yes, you are deep obi-one. However, for the first time in my musical career, I have set aside the artistic ponderings of my past and dedicated my new path to simply rocking out. I used to make the most thought provoking, interesting, boundary-pushing, experimental music I could. I’m now obsessed with the complete opposite. I think the Cricket EP is a good launching pad for this new approach, but the new album I’m currently writing is the total epitome of less thinking, more rocking!