A quick look at your Instagram bio shows a link to a sample pack you produced… how has finding and creating samples has evolved since you started and production and what do you think of the direction it’s headed to now, with wide sample sharing platforms ?
Well, in last 10 years sample production definitely evolved a lot. Before it was mostly recordings of the live instruments, percussions or environment. Also tweaking on the drum machines and other analog gear to get certain type of sound.
With the improvement of the technology and software it became much more interesting and fun to produce sample packs. For example, you can use any VST synth on the market as a starting point to develop different kind of sounds. Also, with the help of audio and midi effects it’s possible to edit those sounds even further and to shape them in any desired way.
With all that new technology and many sample sharing platforms, I think sample production market will only get more interesting, especially with the introduction of the AI technology.
Compared to your other moniker Forest People, Olēka shows a darker, more industrial approach to music. How do you balance your creativity between the two ?
It mostly depends on my mood when I am starting a new track. If I feel more driven, production of the track will most likely go into Olēka direction. With that project everything is open to experiment and basically there are no rules.
After a few releases I start to miss more melodic sounds and traditional approach to techno so that’s the cue for me to start producing Forest People release. Sometimes it depends on the music that I am listening to or the books I read. Sometimes the the shows or the movies I watch push me into different direction when it comes to my production.
It’s been over ten years since you started deejaying in Bosnia Herzegovina. How would you describe the club scene over there, and it’s evolution, to someone who did not witness it ?
In the 2000’s Bosnia had a lot of nice clubs and events that hosted names like Richie Hawtin, Chris Liebing, Jeff Mills and many others. Also, we had a lot of great resident DJ’s who played along side those names.
Our society was not that open to this kind of music but despite all that we had some badass raves trough the years. After 2005 scene started to shift to more commercial events but the underground was still alive. Now we have more diverse scene with strong techno events but also deep house, tech house festivals and club nights.
We are Europe aims to shine a light on European countries’ local scenes. Are there any acts, artists or collectives you would like to talk about and why ?
As I mentioned, these days we have different type of event organizers. Many of them have pretty nice parties and a decent crowd to support them. In Banja Luka there is Fresh Wave Festival happening at the medieval fortress called Kastel.
They hosted names like Butch, Booka Shade, Joris Voorn, Matador and many other great artists. In Sarajevo there are few great event organizers and clubs. Keeping the techno scene alive we have Decibel team that hosted some amazing club nights with Rebekah, Etapp Kyle, Antigone, Regal and others.
Taking care of deep house fans we have amazing Garden Of Dreams events. They made some stunning parties with Solomun, Lehar, Eric Cloutier and Oxia.
When we talk about artists in Bosnia I must mention Siniša Tamamović and Mladen Tomić. They are part of the world techno scene over 20 years now. With the releases on some respectable labels like Tronic, Octopus and SCI+TEC they proudly represented our country in the world.
Also, one of the best D’n’B producers and sound designers in the world right now Adis Kutkut better known as Billain comes from Sarajevo. There are many upcoming artists in Bosnia now and I hope they will make it in the years to come.
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Olēka is on Resident Advisor and Facebook. You can listen to the previous entry in the WAE mixes series, made by Belgrade-based Andria.