Under One Roof marks the kick off to a new series of releases dedicated to new artists.
Poker Flat head Steve Bug took part as a coach in the Mixmasters Retreat on Ibiza last year alongside veteran producer colleagues Huxley and Denney as well as singer & songwriter Jade PraiZe.
The output of last years students was so exciting that most of the tracks have been signed for Under One Roof and the coaches Huxley, Denney and Steve Bug each contributed a remix.
With the compilation out now, we caught up with one of the featured artists, Hervé Solar.
Your journey into electronic music began at a rave in Zurich. How did that experience shape your approach to music and DJing?
I was very young. The audio cassettes, the paper flyers, the abandoned factories… A different kind of music, robotic and without words, but also with its dark side, was emerging. Something was happening, you could feel it. For a young guy like me, it was very exciting. With a few friends, we started going regularly to Zurich and Bern because in Switzerland, that was where things happened, long before the French-speaking part, where I come from. It was incredible, and I was immediately hooked. After a few months of saving, I bought a turntable, then two. As I had no DJ friends and there were no social networks or YouTube, I had to learn on my own, spending hours practicing, trying, experimenting, and searching for music. It was a long road, but thanks to it, I ended up developing my own technique with decks and machines, without influence.
At the time, there were only vinyl records, and finding the right ones was difficult, very difficult. Today, there are thousands of digital tracks coming out every day, but not all of them are good. I kept from that time the taste for looking for good music by being curious and patient.
Resuming your DJ career during the confinement period must have been challenging. What were some of the key lessons you learned during that time?
This period was a tragedy for some, an opportunity for others. Before COVID, I hadn’t made much music for a while. I was lucky to have my job as an IT engineer and keep my salary. Besides, I had time. I started by streaming DJ sets and doing a little production again, more seriously, but out of desire, without specific plans. And above all, I finally read all those plugin user manuals that were sleeping on my hard drive!
So what I learned from this period is that making music takes time and requires organization.
Your music career spans various genres and aliases. How do you decide which alias to release a new track under?
At the time, I changed my alias often. I think I was looking for a good one but never found it. It was a mistake, and I regret it because in the music industry, it’s important to have your own identity. So when I had the opportunity to sign with a big label recently, I decided to use my real first name, which sounds very French and not necessarily ideal in this environment. A kind of reset to zero, and I don’t know why, but it did me good. I won’t change it anymore. 😎
Can you tell us more about the inspiration and process behind your track on Poker Flat’s “Under One Roof” compilation?
At first, this song “Fast to Slow” was an instrumental. I started by writing the drums and percussion as usual. Then, I found the bassline and the chord progression in a few minutes at home that I recorded on Ableton. From memory, I must have used two or three synths, a Moog, and a Juno, I think. A few filters, a few effects. It sounded good, but something was missing. I saved all of that, and it became another file on my computer. And I moved on. Then, during a week in Ibiza with Mixmasters, I met other producers. One day, we were taken to the Metrica Studio. There was a singer, Jade Praize, who was there and was recording some stuff for different people in the group. It was my first time in a professional recording studio. I was like a kid in a toy store. I looked at all the machines, all the buttons, and I tried to understand. At the end of the tour, the engineer told us we had some time left and if anyone wanted to record a few things, it was time. I hadn’t planned anything, but I had this track in my pocket on a USB key. I asked Jade if she would listen to it. She did. She wrote two or three words on a piece of paper, and the engineer pressed record. Everything came together perfectly in one take. It was amazing! I then spent a lot of time on the final details, consolidating the arrangement, and mixing the tracks as best as possible. Steve Bug helped me with the final mixing. For the first time, I had a real, professional track on a top label! It freed me.
Stream here : https://pokerflatrecordings.lnk.to/UnderOneRoof
How was the experience of taking part in the Mixmasters retreat in Ibiza?
It was something truly special, very difficult to describe. Just when I was planning to stop making music, I happened to see a post from Mixmasters on Facebook. Ibiza, where I had strangely never been, and Steve Bug, one of my favorite producers! There was also Huxley and Denney from the UK. Without thinking too much, I sent an email, bought a plane ticket, and found myself on this island with my laptop. I said to myself, “This is your last dance, don’t expect anything and enjoy it!” I remember the first day; I was very impressed and nervous, but in the end, everything went very well! I met people who shared the same passion as me, and most of whom remained friends with whom I am still in contact. We made music night and day and we enjoyed Ibiza in October. It was really good!
And on the last day, Steve announced that he is signing all of our tracks for a compilation on Poker Flat. My heart almost gave out.
With the rise of streaming platforms, how do you see the future of music consumption and distribution evolving?
We consume more and more, more and more quickly, and less and less of good quality, including music. AI is coming, and everything is changing very quickly. I have no idea what will happen in the next few years. I do my thing, and I don’t really look at what’s going on around me anymore. I just hope there will always be room for creativity and passion.
How do you maintain creativity and originality in an industry that’s constantly evolving?
I remember reading an interview with Jeff Mills a few years ago. He said, among other things, that when you want to create on a machine or a synthesizer, try to move the buttons that you don’t understand, break the rules and make mistakes. It’s often by accident that interesting things happen. It stuck with me, and I think about it often.