We don’t know if it was love at first listen with the rolling baselines, regardless of whatever genre the track was confined into. We’re not sure if we started digging for Dragutesku’s releases after tuning into his criptic sonic messages launched on wax at his own DRG Series record label. The thing is that, the harder we tried to fit Dragutesku into the Romanian house & techno soundscape, the more we realized that his signature sound is expanding farther than we thought. Grounded through his Romanian roots, an affirmation confirmed by his artist name, also.

So we took a few moments to talk with Adrian Dragut aka Dragutesku about the sources of inspiration, at the same time going into more technical details about his production flow and studio gear setup.

Music came first for Adrian, so he didn’t look back to his career in aeronautics when he got fired. I was such a musical maniac that I tried to make music even at work. The people from there saw me doing that, and kicked me out. I’m happy that it happened because otherwise I wouldn’t be here, doing what I love.

I would think of us as “soul and problem healers”

The relationship he had with music is more than a handful of 12” releases or some underground party in Berlin. I try as much as possible to transmit through my music the liberty that comes from within. At the end, this is what music is about. I would think of us as “soul and problem healers” And this particular relationship brought him in contact with blissful moments of divine inspiration: I believe that inspiration is not something you think of or plan out. It just appears from somewhere and you have to see that sparkle, guide yourself after it. Otherwise, you will lose yourself in the illusion of making music and nothing will come out. They are rare, these moments of pure inspiration, but when you do have them, they are divine.

Like the majority of Romanian loopy minimalistic house music, Dragutesku’s tracks are destined for intimate crowds, in small clubs where the groove is delivered through crips sound systems, capable of delivering the whole frequency spectrum. A small club can have a huge energy and you feel the emotional impact on the crowd and at the same time, the same track will not generate the same response in a big festival.

When it comes to the production work, things keep staying of the elusive side, with no predefined rules or strict guidelines: You can start off with anything. There are no base rules or patterns to follow. I don’t want to be caught up in a bubble and do the same thing over and over again. I try all the time to do something different; it is the only way one can evolve. Studio creation can be done while dancing, or swiveling around in a chair, from device to device. Everything moves fast, trying to put into practice the idea that inspired me. After I feel I developed this idea, I start recording the sounds and making the track arrangement.

The sonic ideas are rolled through the Roland, Tanzbar and Electribe drum machines, melodies are born on synths from Yamaha, Moog and Korg and from time time the VST’s are taking over, until all this work would be handed over to a modular system somewhere in the near future.

Music already evolves intelligently. I believe that in the future, minimal will sound much more complex and experimental. I saw articles where people said that I inspire them through my music. It really brings me joy when I see this happening and somehow it gives me the ambition to evolve so that others may evolve with me. I believe that in order to achieve a wiser music, you need powerful personal development and to be at least 30 years old.

We don’t really know what the future may bring for the Romanian producer. Maybe a studio collaboration with Ricardo Villalobos. Maybe a release on one of his favourite record labels, Perlon, Body Parts and Visionquest. All we have to do right now is stay in the present moment and enjoy this short playlist provided by Dragutesku, as a quick look into his musical inspiration.