Back once again with a feature on one of the UK’s hottest new artists – Randomer. I first met Rohan earlier this year whilst regularly seeing his face on the road and at clubs across England, since then he has gone from strength to strength hitting up bigger clubs and traveling further afield to spread his unique sound. With no genre limitations, he rides the lines with finesse and ease. Here is a little insight into the man behind the music..

Whats up Rohan, this is the first time we have featured you on Media Contender so tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’m a 23 year old londoner making bass driven electronic music. I started writing music when I first picked up a guitar aged 12 and got into writing electronic stuff later on. Got properly serious about it all when I was at university.. that’s about it really, my first release was 2 years ago and I’m making music at various tempos, mostly 170 & 140.

So over 10 years of music so far, quite a while! Many people will have started to hear about your music in the last 12 months though thanks to releases on Hospital and Medschool. How did that connection come about?

I had given up on making ‘drum’n'bass’ or music at 170bpm 2.5 years ago really. I was really uninspired by what was happening at the time so I started writing at 140 and then had my first two releases at 140. My sound developed quite a bit from this and as a joke I just wrote this thing at 170 called Sacrifice, a proper tribal thing. I then sent it to a few people on aim “just incase” and Chris BMT got back to me saying he really liked it. After that Tony (London Elektricity) got in contact and said he liked what I was doing so I started making more stuff at 170 again, I bashed out a good few tunes and then Tony decided to sign one I did with REDS called ‘Autonomy’ for the Medschool new blood EP. Since then I have been writing music at both tempos and getting the encouragement from hospital early on really helped.

It seems like no matter what tempo you work in you have developed a unique sound of your own which is quite different to a lot of the other stuff out there right now in both 170 and 140. What would you say are your main influences for this?

I don’t specifically TRY to do things different.. I do try not to sound the same though, if that makes sense. I’m just really open minded about music – I take what I like from a genre of music and make it my own, part of what has helped me do this is writing music in so many different styles when I was younger.

I agree you must be one of the most open minded producers out there as well. Lots of people will hate on a genre or rule things out but there isn’t often a week that goes by where I don’t bump into you at something like a Nosaj Thing show, Drum & Bass or a Dubstep night. It’s now that so many genres are crossing and electronic music is sort of hitting a new level – how do you think the perception of electronic music has changed?

It’s a massive part of popular culture now, it’s more of a cultural thing I think as back in the 60s 70s even the 90s there was this idea of subcultures the punks, the hippies, the ravers, metallers, goths, new romantics…etc. But in the new century, with the internet, mass media, globalization etc, people are more inclined to pick & mix.

Now in this post we are featuring a mix you did for Fat Mag. Tell us a little bit about what people can expect to hear in a typical Randomer set, what your preferred DJ platform is and why?

In a typical Randomer set you are likely to hear a really broad range of artists and tempos but they are tied together with sonic similarities. You could find a tribal house thing at 128 that has the same vibe as something at 170 or even a Timbaland beat at 100! I use ableton live for DJing which allows me to switch up tempo easier. To name a few names at the moment I’m really feeling Lil Silva, Untold, Dan Harbarnam, Joe, Pangaea and also like to bring a few classics out. You can’t play a 100% fresh mix to an audience in my opinion, they need some really familiar things for their ears to catch on to, I also use ableton to mashup a few well-known acapellas over my sets, which helps this.

Hell yeah, I think you have definitely managed to create a very unique set from that mentality. So keeping on the dj tip, where has been your favorite place to play so far whilst on the road and what is the place you would most like to play in the future?

I think my favorite place so far was in Lithuania. It was a club set up in a car park complex, still with some cars left inside with their alarms going off to the sub-bass. It reflected for me how much passion people can put into putting events on no matter what happens. Every crowd I play too has its own merits though, it can be so much fun to win over a crowd and fill out early on at one of the Hospitality nights too. Providing people are interested in putting me on, I want to play everywhere and anywhere. It would be great to go to the US too as dubstep seems to be really kicking off there right now, and there is this great connection between LA and London through the Low End Theory heads.

Now I should mention Scapegoat, your first solo release on Medschool if I’m right? It really seems to have gone down an absolute storm, what can people expect next from you release wise?

It’s my second solo release on Medschool, the first was blind/jobless last year.. but scapegoat was definitely the first of a kind as the first track that Medschool put out at 140. Release wise I’m working towards an album with medschool, I’ve got loads of tracks that I’e been testing out on the road that I’ve built over the last year. It’s now a case of working which ones work the best together! I’ve also been doing some remix work.. I’m doing a remix for Placebo and also a remix of liquid’s sweet harmony to go with Danny Byrd’s on Hospital.

So it was, I even have that first release haha. So here are some quick hitters before we have to roll out. Fave artist? Fave track and fave food right now?

So hungry right now, lol!

I’m actually eating a roast dinner whilst interviewing you, how english we are!

Haha, my fave track is all along the Watchtower by Hendrix. Could never say a fav artist completely, but I’ve been getting really into Hudson Mohawke recently. My favorite track right now is probably Dj Eastwood ‘u ain’t ready’ Untold remix and favorite food probably japanese or tex-mex!

Yeah hud mo is a badman, hes gonna take over the planet! So any last words or shouts before we wrap this up? Where can people find out more about you?

Yes Yes, shout out to Kevin Pangaea & Joe Dubstep my new flatmates, big up Jack Untold for inventing the hype elixir – DJs pon tour drink of choice oh and finally big up Ash medschool for all the work he puts in. Oh yeah annndd twitter.com/rohanrandomer, facebook.com/rohanrandomer – regularly spouting randomness of all sorts!

Well it’s been nice to catch up and get a short insight into your music and mind. We will definitely have to do a part two in the future – thanks for your time Rohan!

If you’re after some more ear candy after reading that, Randomer has supplied us with an unreleased track below called Rough Sex. We also have an awesome mix courtesy of Fat Magazine.

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Click to Download “Randomer – Rough Sex”
(Stream & Download Courtesy of Media Contender)

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Click to Download “Randomer – November Mix”
(Stream & Download Courtesy of Media Contender)

Randomer – November 2009 Mix Tracklist

Zombie Disco Squad – The Dance
Joe – Claptrap
Untold – Just For You (Roska Remix)
Randomer & Jonny5 – Too Many Times
Martyn – Mega Drive Generation
Untold – I Can’t Stop This Feeling (Pangaea Remix)
Untold – Palamino
Drop The Lime – Set Me Free (Lil Silva Remix)
Lil Silva – Different
Randomer – Bleep Loop
NB Funky – Frequency
Randomer – Scapegoat
Toasty – Full Clip
Randomer – Soft Focus
Instra:mental – No Future
Randomer – Junk
Danny Breaks – Outro
Randomer – Easter Island
Enei – Z-Grab
Randomer – Down in the Woods
Randomer – Down to the Club
>>Randomer – Synth Geek
Randomer – Trogs
Randomer – Synth Geek
Dan Harbarnam – Zoom Back Camera
Danny Breaks – The Big Bossa
Commix, Nutone & Logistics – Soundbyte
Randomer – Puzzled
>>Hunchbak – Peace Wip
Randomer & REDS – Modem Jazz
Hunchbak – Peace Wip
Decimal – Circle Of Nine
Sabre – God Fearing
Randomer – Appetite
>>Martsman – Halow
Randomer – Rough Sex

Website: myspace.com/randomerdnb