Ashley Hosken is well-known for his down-tempo production under his Diger Rokwell guise. Five self-released concept albums on and he’s back with a deep house EP, now available via Bandcamp. JO CAMPBELL gets the low down on Innersense from the man in question.
You’re definitely a concepts man. What’s the significance of the number four as used throughout Innersense?
Well it’s four tracks all four minutes long in a 4/4 style. The number four has been a recurring number throughout my life: my mother was born on a 22 (2+2=4), I lived in a number four house for most of my life and in numerology, four is a number of danger. I went to Berlin last year and definitely caught the vibe of house and techno again so the 4/4 music with the re-emergence of house sounds in beat music was very inspiring. 4/4 music was a formulative part of my electronic music education as both my brother and sister were attending raves in the early ‘90s and I was listening to Full Frequency (on RTR) and was totally engrossed in the sound at age 10 or so.
You’ve always been into using field recording samples in your work. Any interesting samples used in this one? Who provided the vocals?
I played all the instruments on it: bass, guitar, synth, keys and organ. There are some field recordings of organic sounds: tappings, rain and thunder etc. A lot of the drums and synth sounds were played on the iPad and I sampled Mei Saraswati on the track Grateful from her handmade album she was dishing out a couple of years ago. I also sampled psych folk legend Linda Perhacs on the track Rain and used Ableton very simply, so the making of it was a very organic process.
You’ve produced a lot of down tempo tunes over your past five self-released LPs. What inspired you to make a house record this time?
I make music that reflects my journey as a person, Build My was a break up/make up album which turned out to be a living experience, with a brief attempt to salvage the break up that ended due to the inability to work and agree on things. Innersense is an optimist’s EP, a rebound album, haha. I realise that I am a positive and energetic person and I wanted to make upbeat music that reflects this change post-Build My. From now on, my music will be more positive and more reflective of my true nature.
You also have a side project with local muso Felicity Groom (Rokwell&Groom). Can you give us a sneak preview of the album you’re currently working on together?
I am pretty damn excited about this project. It is a 10-track album of mostly experimental psych-electronic-folk-pop music. It is called New Parts and will be released in late October. Felicity is awesome to work with and so open to new ideas – she has taught me a lot about music. We are going to release two more singles before the album drops and have recently been workshopping some new music ideas for our next release as well.
You’ll be supported by a tight lineup for the launch at The Bird this Saturday (Mei Saraswati, Ylem, Mathas and Rok Riley). What can we expect from your set and of the night in general? Any surprises?
Whenever I release a project, it’s really a celebration of the music that I’ve released. So it will be a showcase of the EP, then a live show of all my material from all seven releases, plus my next movements on releases with some psych hop and Digstanbul music injected in there too. Mei and Mathas will be playing earlier so get down there early, as it will sell out, I think.
