Cadenza (real name Oliver Rodigan) is a producer tipped to do big things in 2015.
Fresh from touring as part of Major Lazer’s live show, the exciting talent is now turning his attention to knuckling down in the studio and releasing more music.
His reggae-infused collaboration with Kiko – the hazy How Many Times – gave us an indication of what he’s capable of. As did Electric Blocks. His latest outing, it’s a brooding, bass-heavy track featuring the vocal talents of Fem Fel. It goes like this…
“The reception to Electric Blocks has been really good,” says Oliver who was brought up on a strict diet of roots via his father, David Rodigan MBE. “I think people have taken to the fact it’s something a little bit different to most stuff around at the moment. In fact, I want to become known for releasing stuff that sounds a bit different to most other stuff. I want to constantly give people a taste of something new and fresh.”
From what we’ve heard of Cadenza so far, we know that he’s a producer capable of trying his hand at a number of different genres and styles to great success. Here are three other things we’ve learnt about him…
He has a masters degree in theology
“I studied Theology at Edinburgh University for four years and found it really interesting. I spent lots of the degree studying indigenous African religions and Islam which was really eye-opening. At school I studied pretty intense subjects so it was nice to do something completely fresh and different.
My life became pretty split; in the daytime I would be at uni until 5 and then in the evenings I’d be producing music and putting on various nights around the city. It was tough at times but I’m definitely glad I did it.”
One of his first forays into music was a Christmas carol competition
“I entered a competition at my school in which we had to compose, arrange and produce a Christmas carol. Unfortunately I never won but I really enjoyed it and it taught me a lot about music production at a young age – maybe if I didn’t enter that competition I wouldn’t be where I am today!
It would be quite interesting to find the sheet music for the songs I composed back then… maybe I should get searching and remix one of them.”
He cut his engineering teeth in a Jamaican recording studio
“Just after I finished school I lived in Jamaica for a couple of months which was wicked. I went over there to learn as much as possible about the engineering side of music production. To be honest I found it all really hard at first but after a few weeks it became a lot easier to understand. There’s a real science behind music production which I perhaps didn’t realise at first, especially as I was still quite young.
Since then I’ve found that music has an extra dimension to it when it’s recorded with live instruments as opposed to when it’s produced on a computer, and I plan to include as many live instruments as possible in the future.”
