DJ Plant Texture Unveils Debut EP Life on Tresor Records – A Journey Through Growth and Sound
DJ Plant Texture, aka Donato Basile, presents his debut EP Life on Tresor Records, exploring the themes of growing up, anxiety, and self-awareness. The EP is a deeply personal reflection on the fear of adulthood and the process of overcoming it.
Basile’s creative approach is spontaneous and intuitive, drawing on years of experience with an MPC. The A-side tracks, including Cycles and Ripetivo, blend groovy, chaotic techno rhythms, while the B-side delves into more melodic and breakbeat-driven territory with tracks like WTT and the title track Life.
The digital bonus tracks, including The EXP Days, reflect Basile’s nostalgia for his record shop, EXP, in Bari, which was a hub for local electronic producers. Life offers a rich, emotive listening experience, showcasing DJ Plant Texture’s ability to tell a story through sound. The EP will Release on 4th April on Tresor Records.
Hello, happy to have you over KEYI, Your debut EP on Tresor Records, Life, explores themes of growing up and overcoming fear. What inspired you to explore such a deeply personal narrative in your music?
Hi there and thanks a lot for the invite. I try to cover a theme on all the tracks/eps I make, it’s mostly the only way I can work. In fact, I’m not totally able to just jam and see what comes out (which I would love to experiment with). For the Tresor release, i wanted to cover a topic that was extremely personal to me and which people can relate to.
You mentioned that your track Life represents the journey of a person’s life, from birth to youth and beyond. How did you translate such a broad concept into a musical form?
The arrangement and the evolution of the synth pattern helped me a lot in translating that, I imagined that crescendo through the song as we as human beings evolve in life, from the born day to old age, with all the problems and fights that all of us have to deal in our life. It’s a song about resilience.
Having used an MPC since the early 2000s, how has your connection with this hardware shaped your sound over the years?
It helped me a lot in dealing with limitations and trying to be fast in doing music. In fact it helped me a lot to not lose time when the inspiration kicks in, which is extremely important for me since i need to elaborate the main structure of the track in the first 10 min, otherwise, everything is gone.
As a former drummer, how do you think your background in percussion influences your approach to crafting techno rhythms? and this particular EP ?
I always try to use drums in a way that can keep people’s attention on a certain level, it’s important to make music recognizable. I always love to experiment with crossovering other genres in techno and vice versa. Like the time-warped hit hat in the first 2 tracks it’s something extremely common in nowadays melodic techno synths, but I rather applied that to my drum samples which is something more personal.
Your work often blends elements of breakbeat and classic techno. Who or what have been some of your biggest influences in shaping your style?
I would say the artists that influenced me the most on a production level are J Dilla and Aphex Twin, 2 geniuses in their own world, completely different but so iconic.
With your debut on Tresor Records, a label with such a rich history, how does it feel to contribute to its legacy?
As an old-school music lover, I still care a lot about the music in his pure art form. When we talk about Tresor we talk about the most influential record label in techno music of all time.
For me, it’s an absolute HONOR to be part of such a great catalog of electronic music like this. Despite the fact that I’m holding the record now in my hands, sometimes it still feels surreal for me.
Eternal thanks to Tresor, Thomas and Felix for the insane work on this.
What do you see as the next chapter in your journey as an artist? Are there any new themes or ideas you’re excited to explore?
I’m working a lot on my new live set lately and improving that a lot. I love to DJ but I love the idea of improvisation and how live music is made.
I’m always exploring different worlds musically, out of pure techno music. So i would say my journey is dictated by my everyday life, and also i have so much music unreleased in so many different styles that I could release with other 10 different monikers.
