Introducing: Rawtekk

Med School’s mantra of pushing genre defying music seems to have been completely realised with their new singing, Rawtekk. A German duo who specialise in sound design, they’ve already collaborated with Phace (of Neosignal fame), released on labels like Subtitles and made library sample packs for software developers like Steinberg’s Cubase and Halion, so it’s fair to say they come equipped with the type of technical knowhow to master different approaches. Sprouted and Formed is the duo’s debut album; reportedly due out in early July on Med School. With this and a performance in the upcoming Med School hosted Room Three takeover on Friday 5th July looming, we shot the duo some introductory questions to get to know them and their output a little better. How would you describe the music you make in more detail? Stefan: It's a mixture of d&b, electronica and IDM, so it's very varied; to differentiate between genres I used different project names in the past, but this is too time-consuming and exhausting in the long run. We have many musical influences that come together in our music and we always try to go further. That's why we demand the understanding of the listener when we are switching between genres or when we are becoming more experimental. Christine: Sometimes the output can be a very minimal album. At other times the results can be more club aligned. We believe that today the acceptance of the listener is much broader than even a few years ago. If it fits we try to integrate surprises and twists within a track, but we put high value on a pleasing quality of sound and the feeling that remains when one listens to a piece. Considering that you come from different backgrounds, do you feel like your individual takes on music writing/production effect the overall sound of your output? Like ‘Snowflakes’ feels a little bit denser and more considered than a lot of dancefloor d&b and then ‘Photone Recruits’ is pretty much a straight roller… Christine: We feel that we are not so very different even though we have different backgrounds. When we create music, or even when we listen to music from other artists, we often like the same peculiarities. Basically it's important to us to put loads of feeling into our music. Stefan: Christine has more compositional skills so I benefit and learn from these. Conversely it is the sound design she benefits from me. Christine is not always the feminine part and sometimes she is not involved at all; for example with ‘Snowflakes’ I just wanted to compose a d&b pop-song and asked a guest-singer to feature on it. You’ve spent time developing sample libraries and such for Cubase, do you feel like that same attention to detail comes through in your music? Do you use your own sample libraries in your music? Stefan: We have not used our sample libraries very often so far, but we have already heard them in the work of other composers a couple of times. On our own tracks we always try to develop our individual sound and do not tend to pick up existing material. We put much more time into creating our own sounds and we try out a lot more to give our music a special sound. Christine: On sound design projects we have to make sure to stick to the time limit and to stay away from being too narcissistic with sounds which no user would even value. A techno drum kit should sound as one and libraries need simple, so called, bread and butter sounds. Still we strive for perfection and always want to deliver a good product to the client. You’ve just signed an album to Med School. Can you tell us about the record at all? How does it feel to be launching a new venture on a label like that? What else is coming up for you this year? Christine: We are happy that we found accommodation on Med School and we can't wait to finally meet the crew personally on July 5th at fabric! From our point of view, the collaboration is extremely productive. We feel artistically understood and taken care of, not least, because we can move freely in different genres. We are looking forward to the release of the album and hint that it will represent different aspects of our creative work. Stefan: Our next plans for this year will be us staying at a house in Denmark in order to get new ideas for future songs within a different environment and in addition to this some collaborations and remixes are planned with other interesting artists.