BOYS NOIZE [21:11:07] FEEL THE NOISE I could imagine there would be little else as exciting as being an in-demand producer who has the opportunity to release his artist debut. And Alexander Ridha’s enthusiasm is catching, as is his desire to spill the beans on the entire project. It goes like this: “Honestly man, I didn’t plan to produce an album! I was touring and doing remixes and productions and stuff like that. After each track I thought it would be great to release them as a single, but my schedule didn’t allow me to put anything out because of my other releases. By the end of 2006, I found I had produced more and more tracks – 15 in total, so I decided to put them all on a CD.” Certainly, all of this excitement, production and touring is a far cry from buying house and rap records in the mid 1980s. “When I was like five years old,” he recounts, “I was in this room listening to all these house and disco records. That’s the first I can remember being into it. I saw that Grandmaster Flash video where he explains how to DJ, and that was amazing stuff. I think it was around that time I started working two jobs to afford turntables and records. Then I had my first big gig. When I was 16 I had my first show as a warm up DJ and it went well and I got a lot of bookings. Then I got a programme to produce music at home. I met a guy called D.I.M and we built our studio up and learnt a lot about engineering. I later moved to Berlin in 2003 and that’s when I started my Boys Noize project.” The album is called ‘Oi Oi Oi’ and it’s a masterful 14 track collection of electro tech-funk. His upcoming show will be an interesting one. “Well, I’m going to do a mixture of a DJ and live set. I will obviously mash them up a little bit. I will play some records as well, but right now I’m into more old stuff like 90s house and techno, from Dancemania to very new tunes. The reason behind the live thing is that while I was preparing my laptop for the performance, I was conscious that I didn’t want to be up on stage looking at my screen all the time. I consider myself a musician so I think the idea of three decks and efx is a good one!” RK Boys Noize plays at The Round And Round Festival at the Brisbane Riverstage on Sunday November 25. He is also at The Empire this Thursday, November 22. back to top ^

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