Here at Radio Control Plan, we’re big fans of young producers with more talent than sense. When I found out one lived 10 minutes away from me, I couldn’t resist getting a sit-down set up. Enter Filippo Rocco, half of WFNM Sounds, an Italian collaboration born in 2009 between Filippo and his friend, Matthias Cordsen. Matthias is currently based out of Rome and Filippo is in Cardiff on a study-abroad programme. Off the back of playing with 2MANYDJS and Scuba last week, I sat down with Filippo to talk about EDM and what he’s got in store for us in the next few weeks. More after the break:
RCP: Firstly, thanks for agreeing to do this interview with us. In the short time that you’ve been in Cardiff, you’ve already made a name for yourself here playing with some huge names. How did your love affair with EDM begin?
Filippo: Well, when I finished high school in 2008 or 9, I met Matthias in Rome, and we had the same taste in old school music. We started finding common points in our work and started producing together. We organised a party pretty soon after and it was a huge success, with about 600 people showing up. At the time we were working with a lot of Detroit Techno, because Milan had a pretty old school techno scene at the time. This was my entry point into electronic music, but after I started to move towards dubstep and drum & bass, but I was still into artists like 2562 and this brought me back to a more tech-house sound.
RCP: I know you’re busy organising something big for Cardiff, and we’ll get to that later, but what nights have you been involved with before coming to the UK?
Filippo: One of our first projects together was setting up Dubzoo in Milan, which was one of the first proper dubstep nights in Italy, and this got us a lot of fame, but its not about that – it’s about having people come to our parties and have a good time. Because of Dubzoo though, we got the chance to play all over Italy, and in Amsterdam in pretty big clubs and in festivals. Around Italy we even got the opportunity to headline a few events in Parma, Rome and Novarra which were really fun.
RCP: Every artist defines their music slightly differently and you guys are definitely straddling the line between a few genres, how would you define the music you guys have been producing?
Filippo: We’ve been calling our music dub-techno for a while now: big bass and a little bit of dub with influences of Berlin and Dutch techno, so there are elements of trance in there as well, but we still don’t really know what to call it. We’ve got a pretty big range so what we play depends on what our crowd is like on the night.
RCP: Are there any particular DJs/Producers that you guys get your inspiration from?
Filippo: Matthias is big into his Berlin Techno DJs, like Mife Denhert. Before we were both really into acts like Jeff Mills but recently I’ve been listening to a lot of Nicolas Jaar, and since coming to the UK I’ve been getting into acts like Maya Jane Coles and Disclosure but they’ve got a very UK feel to them and we’ve still got our roots in Dutch techno
RCP: How do you deal with your production partner being so far away?
Filippo: We both work on our individual projects and send them to each other and give feedback. It’s a little tough for me though because here I only have a small synth and my traktor kontrol and I’m working through headphones so it will be a lot easier when I’m back in Italy.
RCP: Tell me about what you have planned for Cardiff before you head off.
Filippo: This Thursday we’re launching a new night in Cardiff called Circles. We’ve already launched the night in Rome and it did pretty well for itself. The idea behind it is that what goes around, comes around. What we want to do with the night is promote homegrown talent in cities and have them eventually take over the running of the night in each city we start it in. We’re looking to set one up in Utrecht and some other points in Europe sometime before the end of the year. Any excuse to travel, right?
Filippo was kind enough to give us a couple of tracks for your enjoyment – check them out, I advise getting some big headphones on for these:
Be Your Lover (WFNM Sounds Remix) – WFNM Sounds
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Order Another One of Imports – WFNM Sounds
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If you’re bored this Thursday and fancy a solid night with good music, Circles is on pretty close to the train station, is gonna be cheap and is open till late so you can just jump on a train home when it ends. You know you want to. Here’s the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/322955884442341/
If you want to keep up to date with what Filippo and Matthias are working on, check them out on Facebook and SoundCloud:
LIKE: https://www.facebook.com/pages/W-F-N-M-Sounds/181105671961881
SHARE: http://soundcloud.com/wfnmsounds
And if you’re in Milan and want to hit up Dub Zoo, check it: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dub-Zoo/264233700320586
If you like these sounds, I’ll be launching a new series called the cable soon covering all things bass, but for now, poopoo out.
- mrpoopoo
