teshno

if you’ve clicked a link somewhere on the internet with the intention of reading this, you don’t need a wordy intro. you’ll already know romanian cosmin trg (formerly just trg) is making some of the best and most ghostly house/techno/whatever shit out there at the moment, for labels like rush hour, hessle and hotflush.

much love to him for such considered answers…

how are you? how you enjoying life?

i’m all good, thanks for asking. enjoying my new hometown, berlin. it’s all great so far and i’m still taking it all in.

how and when were you first exposed to electronic music? what was it about the sounds you heard you loved so much?

i think i was about 12 when this girl gave me an orbital album on tape (snivilisation) and it disturbed me. i’d been on a diet of my mother’s kraftwerk, tangerine dream and italo disco records before but this was so contemporary and cool. soon after i saw this video installation that had basic channel and jeff mills for soundtrack, and that’s pretty much been the soundtrack to my life so far. they just expressed my whole outlook on things, they felt organically linked to my existence.

and how long was it ‘til you thought ‘i want to be part of that?’

i was 19 and went to this warehouse festival (there weren’t many where i lived and clubs were playing cheesy eurotrance). i saw this french dj playing techno on 3 turntables. everyone was watching it mesmerized, it looked like a shy crowd because a lot of people were so new to this stuff. i pretty much made up my mind that night, that i wanted to make music and play it out.

and when did you start producing? how long was it until you were happy with your music and started sending it out?

i started sometime in ’98 with this demo of rebirth, i didn’t have a computer so i went to friends’ places and installed it wherever i went, tried to record the outcome on cassette, nothing really worked so i put it on a back burner for a while. in my country music production was still a bit of a mysterious affair and information was scarce. i seriously started sometime in 2002 with no clue about what i was doing, building tracks at random bpms and chuffed at the fact that i could get sounds to come out of a computer. nothing happened until late 2006 when i made put you down/ broken heart in the space of 3 day and sent it to david ramadanman. they loved the stuff so they started hessle audio with that 12″.

do you think growing up where you did has had a lasting impact on your music?

it must’ve had an impact, both positive and negative. on the one hand i was pretty much isolated from the rest of the music world so i did my own thing, never really cared much for genres or styles and just expressed my ideas and feelings. on the other hand, i spent a lot of time trying to get contacts, feedback, figuring out where i was musically, catching up on trends and whatnot. it’s a bit lame to complain but in other musical environments, access to music and ideas is just taken for granted, whereas in my hood you had to put some serious work in to stay connected. i think a lot of eastern-european musicians can relate to this.

you seem to be a very restless producer with a wide remit of sounds – is that due to thinking ‘i have to keep mixing it up’ or is it a more subconscious thing influenced by, say, the music you are listening to at any one time?

i am compelled to keep mixing it up. it’s my nature, i hear interesting sounds and ideas everywhere. i do have a certain framework in my mind, but i keep it open for new elements and build upon that.

are you restless in life generally with quickly changing interest or just when it comes to music?

i am quite a bipolar individual and i suffer from musical add so to speak. i have to have change in my life, i can’t settle anywhere, as soon as a routine kicks in i take radical, instinct-based decisions.

can you see a point where you’ll find your vibe and want to stick with it before tackling a whole different sound again or…?

i did find my vibe, at any given time, my music was a pretty accurate expression of who i was. i made some angry music when i was angry. i made some introspective stuff when i was feeling introspective. now that i am out of my comfort zone, i feel more comfortable than ever, if that makes any sense.

what currently inspires/influences you? and how do you channel that into your own sound? does it take any effort or?

literally everything inspires me. the ideas i’m trying to convey are an amalgamation of vibes, sounds, literature, film, people, happenings… the effort is just part of the process.

i understand it was house you dabbled in first, why did you get bored of that for the 2step/garage/whatever you then made as trg? and what was the catalyst to switch back to housier stuff? was there one moment/tune/set or?

the stuff i made as trg was just a part of me going forward, finding new sounds. the music was a projection of the emotions triggered by the sound of what was then called dubstep. i came into the scene as an outsider and probably left as one, at one point i felt comfortable but then i just couldn’t find my place in the whole scheme of things and i was already onto my next move. i never really saw myself as a dubstep artist or dj, so i didn’t really see a point in clinging on. i was making 4/4 beats all the time since 2007 and around 2009 i felt comfortable with a lower bpm and different grooves. as for the catalyst, it was just a matter of checking out other types of music and becoming more inspired. to be fair the ostgut sound had grabbed me and i returned to my early techno roots when things made more sense.

do you have any underlying goals when writing music whether it be house, techno, whatever? is there a certain aesthetic or texture or emotion you always like to achieve? or is it more of a fluid process?

i’d say it’s a fluid process, but at the end of the day, if it’s a dance track, then it has to make me dance. if it does, mission accomplished.

you have a unique way of using vocals… what’s the thinking behind that? what do you think they can add?

to be honest i haven’t used that many vocals lately. vocals can be very strategic, they add a hook to a song, people recognize that, it’s great for the dancefloor, which can sometimes be a very hypocritical thing to do, but most of dance music is.when i use vocals i just use them as self-sufficient instruments, as sounds that cannot be created otherwise.

are you someone who works quickly so the creativity is unhindered or are you an endless tweaker? does the ‘how’ matter to the final sound do you think?

i think i write music in a similar way that painters use their canvas, all in one go, if it doesn’t work i just burn it and start fresh. it’s just the way i work, the way it works for me.

you still living in romania? do your environment/surroundings have much influence on your music or you think you’d be doing the same wherever you lived?

i just moved to berlin. i know it can be quite a cliché thing to do these days but it was a personal decision and i love it so far. i just needed a change in scenery. surroundings do play a big part. my next release on rush hour was pretty much made in london and chicago, but those elements are filtered through my own personality. the tune i started in chicago actually sounds detroit-ish. the stuff i made in london sounds more like chicago and iceland. at least to me. i guess the music is an expression of what i make of those places and what they mean to me. i don’t separate the music from the environment, what you hear is who i am, at a given moment. i change a lot, so sounds are different.

are you involved in the local scene at all? would you like to be? is it healthy?

now that i’m away i can capitalize on distance and be honest. i loved my local scene and i’ve had great moments, there’s nothing like playing home, for your people. there were times when i felt like a stranger and i still do. the scene in romania is as healthy as any other, with a bit of unhealthy purism attached to it. it’s not an easy scene. it’s a bit naive at times, a bit unfair, which i guess is universal. i could go on and on about things i hate about it, things i’d like to see changed, people i wish were not involved, but that’s politics. i’m just really thankful to all the people who’ve been supporting my sound through the years, came to my shows, spread my music, and hopefully i’ll be able to return all that.

would you ever consider moving to a hotspot like berlin or london? think there would be any advantage in that?

i may have answered your question earlier there is the advantage of doing all the things i couldn’t do back in bucharest, like €1 tacos and tequilas in kreuzberg with jimmy edgar & friends.

what’s your live setup like? how often do you change it up and what do you aim to achieve with a live set as against a dj set? how do they compare and contrast?

i’m still building the live set, at the moment it’s ableton with the apc40 and various bits of hardware. my main priority now is to get it as unpredictable and live as possible. i want to play with it as much as i can.

how come you have such impeccable english?! where did you learn?

thanks for that, i’m actually self-taught, i’ve always had a knack for languages and i can at least order drinks in 6 more idioms.

anyone you think needs biggin’ up? anyone we should be checking out?

wish i could come up with some names that nobody knows about so i would come across as a cool selector, but really the stuff that works for me comes from people like skudge, mike dehnert (in fact the whole fachwerk crew), ostgut ton, rush hour, delsin, clone, lone, brandt brauer frick, isolee, actress, four tet, the uk producers out of their comfort zone, a lot of eastern-european producers like kink and my co-nationals petre ‘pedro’ inspirescu or aeromaschine. i’m missing a lot of others right now but there are loads.

what else you got we can look forward to? any plans for an album?

separat/ izolat was just out last month on modeselektor’s 50 weapons. my new ep for rush hour, “a universal crush” will be out any day now, also remixes for skudge, slam and housemeister, as well as a new follow-up 12″ on 50 weapons. an album idea is in the works and it will probably come to fruition later this year, more details on that soon. the singles are pretty much dancefloor, but i’m ready to take the album to places i’ve never been before and hope people will enjoy that.

finally, what do you do with your time outside of music? anything else give you such kicks?

i’m interested in a lot of different things ranging from art, architecture, film to physics and vices, although i’m no expert in any of these fields. i do get a kick out of exchanging different ideas with friends and strangers because society and human behaviour is still very surreal to me. i get the ‘how’ but i don’t get the ‘why’. but i’m still here.