Rather Handy
Described as ‘the Romanian Underground Resistance’, electro and techno veteran Andrew Red Hand has recorded for a huge list of top labels including M>O>S Recordings, Lobster Theremin, Matrix Records, Twilight 76, Detroit Underground, Chiwax, Databass, Detroit Techno Militia, Cratesavers Intl, 1Ø Pills Mate, Visillusion, 6ONE6, Detroit Techno Records, Bass Agenda, Land Of Dance and Remote Influence. He recently dropped his third EP for the revered Chiwax, the ‘Nostalgia’ EP, and celebrates here with a mix for Juno Daily, as well as answering a few qs. Lucky, lucky us, eh?!
HI ANDREW – THANKS FOR TAKING THE TIME TO ANSWER OUR QUESTIONS. WHERE ARE YOU RIGHT NOW AND HAVE YOU HAD A GOOD DAY SO FAR? BEEN UP TO ANYTHING NICE OR GOT ANYTHING INTERESTING PLANNED FOR LATER?Hello! Thank you for the interview, I am honoured!Now I am back home in Iasi, Romania. Yes I had a pretty good day so far, full of sunshine, except for my neighbor who keeps drilling the walls and my brain as well haha. Musicwise, we finally released my Nostalgia EP on Chiwax (which had a bit of delay) and I am glad that it had some great feedback.Now I’m planning another EP – For My Father, dedicated to my dearly missed father, which will be released on my buddy Binh’s label Time Passages, with a dope remix from the legendary DJ Hell.I am also working on new music, so more to come!
THANKS,TOO, FOR DOING US A MIX – WHAT AS THERE ANY SPECIFIC AGENDA TO WHAT YOU CREATED?It was my pleasure! It was recorded live from the last event I played in my city this year, at my homeboys’ Techno Wall event at College Bar. It was a great, friendly night.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR EARLIEST MUSICAL MEMORIES – THE MUSIC YOU HEARD VIA PARENTS, SIBLINGS, FRIENDS… AND YOUR FIRST EXPERIMENTS IN MAKING MUSIC TOOWell I grew up during the communist era of Romania, so at that time it was really hard to get some music other than the local one. We had a 1976 model of Russian reel-to-reel tape recorder Majak-203 and my father had a friend who recorded for us a bunch of reels with all sorts of great music of the 70’s and 80’s. Then after the 1989 revolution borders opened and we bought a Unitra pick up and after a visit to a friend, I accidentally discovered Kraftwerk’s Computer World, mainly for its design with robots and a computer similar to what my friend had, on which we played some games. I totally fell in love with the EP and especially to It’s more fun to compute! And so I discovered techno.Then I had a double cassette player and pirated cassettes came from all over the world, some of them with some high quality techno. Afterwards we had a VCR and I recorded lots of great music from Viva’s shows Housefrau, Berlin House or MCM Techno, I discovered a lot of techno stuff and also the Detroit sound which I loved. Also one of my cousins had a pretty cool collection of techno. Then VIP club appeared in my city in 1997 and we gathered all the techno folks and we started the scene.My first experiments in making music started in early 2000 after a visit to a friend, who was using Fruitty Loops. Then I came home and without any tutorials (I hated them haha), I started to discover it and slowly to do some music. It was a real pain as I was using an ultra slow AMD 450 MHz computer, so I had to wait one hour to export the track in full as it cannot be played every instrument at once. So in this way I did 3 electro tracks which later I uploaded on myspace and after many compliments from legends from Detroit like Claude Young, Mike Huckaby or Dave Clarke, who kept playing them in his White Noise show, I decided to send them to DJ Godfather and he released them on his legendary label Twilight 76. So my first EP – Iasi to Detroit was born. It was a dream come true to release straight in the techno capital Detroit.
GIVE US A RUN DOWN OF WHAT YOU’VE RELEASED UNTIL NOWWell so far I released lots of EPs and remixes, so…
EPs : Iasi To Detroit EP on DJ Godfather’s Twilight 76, Life-Changing Experiences EP on Sean Deason’s Matrix Records, For My Mother EP and Dear Goddess Ep on Aroy Dee’s M>O>S Recordings, Inspiring Memories EP on Kero’s Detroit Underground, Beware Of The Red Hand on Asquith’s Lobster Theremin’s 1ØPILLSMATE sublabel, Spiritual Capital EP on Robert Drewek’s Chiwax, Revolution ’89 EP on Lobster Theremin, In The Cemetery Saga EP on Rotterdam Electronix, Different Perspectives EP on Diffuse Reality and Nostalgia EP on Chiwax. For My Father EP is coming up later this year on Time Passages.Tracks : Jassyd on Scan 7’s Cratesavers Techno Brings People Together, No War on Shipwrec VA Electro Sampler 1, and In The Cemetery (Hardfloor Remix) on VA- Time Passages 10 Years Anniversary, in 2025.I did remixes for Scan 7, Santonio Echols, Thomas Barnett, Sean Deason, Niko Marks, Six Foe, T.Linder, Hardfloor, UHF, Da GobliNN, DJ Spade Da Specialist, W1bo. Unofficial remixes – DJ Stingray – Image Search, Depeche Mode – Never Let Me Down Again, New Order – Blue Monday
TELL US ABOUT THE NAME ANDREW RED HAND – WHERE DOES THAT COME FROM?Andrew Red Hand comes from the English version of my name Andrei and my left hand which is entirely red. It’s a birthmark named hemangioma plan, similar to the one Mikhail Gorbachev had on his forehead. I think I am a marked dude or something haha.
YOU’VE RELEASED MUSIC ON LABELS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD – WHAT’S THE SCENE IN ROMANIA LIKE? ARE YOU OPERATING IN ISOLATION OR ARE THERE OTHER ARTISTS ON A SIMILAR TIP NEAR YOU?To be deadly honest I never cared so much about the Romanian scene as it’s most commercial or minimal related and I never liked these sorts of useless boring noises. So yeah I am operating in isolation, but in connection with the entire world :). In terms of local artists, Borusiade is the one I like.But there are some great places to play of course, like the Control club in Bucharest. Last time I played there with the legend DJ Stingray and it was the best time ever! Lovely vibe and people. Also in Cluj is pretty interesting and people are more open minded, my homeboy from Pressure Nights keeps pushing things around. So there are some events now and then but the scene should be bigger. It was better before the minimal wave.
WHAT MUSIC – OLD, NEW, DANCEFLOOR OR OTHERWISE – IS FLOATING YOUR BOAT AT THE MOMENT?Well beside electronic music, I listen to pretty diverse stuff, from classics like Beethoven’s amazing Moonlight Sonata to Chopin, Erik Satie, to the 70s, 80s and some 90s, Depeche Mode, Sade, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Nirvana… or blues, I love John Lee Hooker, Gary Moore, or Jimi Hendrix. Good music is good music after all, so there is always something to learn from it. WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU IN THE SHORT/MEDIUM/LONG TERM?I am planning to do and release more music, some collaborations with some like minded artists and I started to play some piano now, so we’ll see what I’ll come up with. And in the meantime I am also searching for a new booking agency haha.
Thanks a lot Juno !
Buy ‘Nostalgia’ on vinyl here
TRACKLISTING:
Locked Club – DevchonkaLocked Club – Electro HundLocked Club – After CakeLocked Club – Dubai GirlfriendLucinee – Bang Juice (Blame The Mono Remix)Florindo – KNS RaverFractions – If You Love MeSubSight – IntoxicatedWtchcrft – Losing The PlotJacidorex – Humanize (JKS Remix)xk21 & St Mike – Rush HourFalse Persona – ExhaleAirod – Universe Of 90’s Techno Parties (Perc Remix)Benjamin Damage – WhaaAny Act – Deti TechnoLectr0 C0d_E – c0d_E ViolationAny Act – Chin Chin DeGesloten Cirkel – Arrested Development
