Updates from shatterfreak 
With the rather stunning “Play” EP out on Rudimentary Records I grabbed Roughquest to answer a few questions for us and deliver some insight into the man behind what is to me, one of the most interesting releases I have heard in some time.
SF : For those not in the know, give us a brief run through of your history with music, and your production history in particular.
RQ : I’ve always been into computers, ever since my big brother got hold of an Amiga 500, I was hooked. I used to program games and all sorts on that thing… Until I found a random floppy disk called Octamed in the box. And that was it basically… I was totally addicted to that program. Looking back on it, it was just a fantastically powerful program… all at half a meg of RAM and at 320×200 screen resolution. Love it. But yeah, it was this that really got me into producing music. I still have an old James Bond remix I did, that I recorded off an old cassette tape. Did that when I was about eleven years old I think. It wasn’t half bad!
My other big bro was well into the free party scene at the time, so he had shit loads of rave tapes laying around and flyers all over his wall. I used to love the flyers and the tapes he had… I’m pretty sure all the old ‘92 tapes exist right now, really old Clarke and Kenny Ken stuff. Electronic music has always held a special spot in my heart, starting from raw dance music but maturing into more experimental organic sounding stuff. Future Sound Of London’s Lifeforms album is the absolute height of electronic music to me.
All of my geekery, through out the years, meant that I never really took up playing a real instrument. My parents kindly brought me a keyboard (old Yamaha something or other) that had loads of sounds and basic synth programming on it… I still practice my keys, but I’m a shit musician. I appreciate I’ll never be a good instrumentalist, I’ll leave that to the pros. I’m just the geek in the corner, twiddling with my knob(s).
SF : Your release “Play” on Rudimentary Records is at times stark, and at other times beautiful, and is sometimes both in the same moment. Are you attracted to duality in music in general or did it all come about subconsciously in the writing process.
RQ: Definitely so! I love putting things together in sound that shouldn’t really go together. I’m glad you said that, as it must surely show on the other side. That’s cool man… But yeah, as I’ve been doing more and more production, I’ve noticed that it’s less about what I have in my head before hand… It’s more about a sound or a texture which snowballs into all these different directions, then it’s me sort of knitting these all back together to make a cohesive whole. I’ve never been one to make ’straight ambient’, ’straight dubstep’ or ’straight trip hop’ etc. But I love all these genres and what they do to me as a listener… I suppose it’s sort of my quest to take these little elements, from all the genres I love, and squeeze them into something that’s (hopefully) enjoyable to listen to. At the end of the day, that’s all I really want.
SF : I personally consider your release to be a very special type of music, something to get lost in while traveling as a very welcome distraction from what’s around me. There is sense of isolation and strength in it, where as often times music in this vein can come across as desolate or fragile…it’s basically a very confident EP to my ear. Would you consider this a fair summary or am i talking out of my ass? 
That’s great it is having that effect on you. As a producer of that music, I couldn’t ask for a better reaction to it. It’s funny you say it’s a confident sounding EP though… I felt anything but confident with the tunes, the mixdowns, the mastering etc. Maybe it’s because it’s the first time my tunes have been taken seriously. I literally poured my blood and sweat in to it, for about 2 months solid, to bring them from work in progresses to the finished thing. Literally thought of nothing else… I was so unsure of every aspect. But now I can relax more on it and sort of feel proud of my efforts. I’m glad it still came through confident, as the ideas were bold and brash to start with, glad they survived the mental turmoil!
SF : What’s next for Roughquest?
I promised myself to get another EP out this year, if that happens or not is another story. The first EP was a push to define my sound somewhat. Though, in all honesty, I have no idea what that sound is yet – but I think that keeps things a little more interesting (for me anyhow). I recently invested in a decent controller for my laptop, so I’ve been furiously working on doing little mixtapes too. I’m not a conventional DJ, never will be, but I do love to mix music I love. I’ve already done a few for a few blogs and sites and definitely want to do more. I’m hoping to keep these fresh and interesting and not just the normal hour-long two-track DJ mixing thing… So please do listen out for these ones. I’m starting to think seriously about doing some live stuff too, but this may take a while to form yet. It’d be great to find someone to do it with or at least to help ease me into it a bit, I lack confidence sometimes… but one step at a time I think!
SF : Who is currently getting some play when you are not working on your own productions?
SoundCloud is such a great source of new music… It’s a fantastic site and I love how viral it is. There is some people out there doing some amazing music, better than anything I hear knocking around usually… Altair is one guy. He does the most soulful, clean, crisp productions. He recently did a collab with Es.tereo (another guy to check out). A lot of Vandera’s work is great. Anything by my mate Stuart K (Mr Lager in the dubstep circles) and ASC… anything that guy touches at the moment just turns to gold. Also checking out a lot of Muted’s stuff too. A good friend of mine Fonik is quickly getting his free music label up called Manifesto Music, which will feature a release from Muted. I have a finger in that pie too, it should be an exciting project and release! Aside from that, Rhythm & Sound gets a lot of love from me, a lot of old Future Sound Of London, Thom Yorke (and Radiohead) and I’ve recently been getting quite into hip hop (as you may tell from some of my mixtapes that’ll be coming out…) I always try and keep an open mind with this stuff. I’m less about the names and the genres really… If it’s good music, it’s good music!
If you want to keep an eye on Roughquest you can get him on Facebook, Twitter and Soundcloud.
I would also strongly recommend checking out his Bare Ingredients Mixtape which can be found here.
