Mosca: ‘I get lumped in with that scene but I don’t fit in anywhere’

Over the last couple of years, Mosca has built a solid reputation up for his wide ranging taste in music. As a DJ, he’s known for his diversity and ability to draw records from far flung corners of the world. While as a producer, he draws influences from dancehall, grime, bassline, UK garage, funky, hiphop – the list of genres is endless.

But it has been the release of Bax and Done Me Wrong that has really thrown the London-based artist into the spotlight.

“Done Me Wrong didn’t take that long but the problem was making another track to go with it,” he says, “I was destroying and rebuilding this kind of garage techno type thing which just wasn’t working – I scrapped it completely and made Bax in a couple of days.”

The producer says the EP was influenced mainly from vintage era bassline and speed garage, “But I wanted something sharp and ‘2011 enough’ to make an impact on today’s clubs,” he says. The end result was arguably one of the standout releases of 2011.

“I was happy with the tracks and knew some people would be feeling them,” he says, “But the overall reaction I got – and am still getting – was incredible.”

The buzz around the release resulted in surge of Twitter followers making Mosca promise to release some free music once he hit the 5000 milestone.

It says a lot for his output this year that the two tracks, Bunching and The Way We Were were worthy of another EP release.

“That free music tweet was just a throw away comment that kind of backfired,” he says, laughing, “I asked if I should give away a track or two when I reached 5000 followers on Twitter, everybody obviously said yes but Bax came out and my followers went right up.”

“All I had the day I was going to hit 5000 was these slow-house tunes that had originally been lined up for a label release – I had to whip up some artwork and give them away.”

The 5000 Followers EP took a different sound and the release epitomises Mosca’s varied production. The diversity also highlights his reluctance to be tied down to one sound.

“I don’t think I’ve taken any direction yet because I’ve yet to do two releases in the same genre,” he says, “You can’t really compare, Tilt Shift, a hiphop tune, to say, Jager, a Berlin sounding techno track.”

“My sound falls between and on top of a few different sounds,” he says.

In recent years, the UK bass scene appears to have been rejuvenated by a wave of talent, Mosca included, attempting to think outside the box. But Mosca believes this has only happened recently.

“If you’d asked me that a few months ago I might have answered this differently. But right now the scene is getting healthy,” he says.

I push him to name some producers he is currently looking out for.

“Ziro, Artifact and South London Ordinance are making some great modern techno inspired music, then there’s Sunday Roast, Beneath, Carnao, LR Groove, Jook 10 and Major Notes that are pushing funky into new places and new forms,” he says.

“I get lumped in with that scene but I don’t feel like I fit in anywhere particularly. It may seem like a bit of a ’same old’ answer but I’m just happy doing me.”

He spends his time constantly making new music, “All the time I’m not DJing – If I’m travelling to a rave, I’ll be making music on my laptop and headphones in the airport,” he says.

2012 looks set to be as diverse as ever for him.

“You’ll be hearing some dancehall, some funky, some deep house, some grime, some vocal bits, some more experimental bits as well,” he says, “Underground club music that you journalist lot might have a bit of trouble boxing up.”

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