Artist Spotlight: RIVER
Growing up in Bristol, a city with a rich music culture, how did your surroundings shape your sound and taste when you were starting out?
I think Bristol’s music culture has always been about creative freedom and innovation. The rich genre pool that I grew up with has definitely influenced the way I create and experience music. I feel like when you listen to my songs, you can hear the way growing up in Bristol has shaped it, through not really having fear of trying slightly different sounds or incorporating different styles with each other, but most importantly for me, it feels like it’s allowed me to have complete creative freedom and not pin myself into a corner with style/genre, especially when I first got into making music.
You’re still early in your journey, but you’ve already put out a couple of well-received tracks like Only 1 and In Motion. What first inspired you to start making electronic music?
The biggest influence has to be my dad (STANDERWICK). Growing up, music was always a big part of my dad’s life, and that rubbed off on me. I’ve always played instruments from a young age, and since then, I’ve been heavily invested in music, way before I even thought about creating any of my own. But when I was like 8 or 9, my dad started to get involved with dance music through the trance scene, which he ended up becoming quite a big part of, so since then, there’s always been a 4×4 kick drum or an offbeat hi-hat blaring out of the home studio. However, I never really understood the attraction to dance music until my first few festival experiences a few years ago. The way it just brought random people from all walks of life together to share the same experience and moment had me hooked straight away. Since then, I’ve learnt how to produce and never really looked back.
If you could collaborate with any artist or producer in the future, who would that be and why?
Haha, hard question. If I were being very optimistic, I think right now in the scene I’d love to work with artists like Pegassi or Benwal at some point. Now I know their sounds are completely different, but I just love how innovative and creative they are when it comes to their music. It feels fresh and exciting, which is ultimately what I want to achieve with my project, which is RIVER. Their sounds are raw and emotional, but still set a crowd alight. I think that ticks all the boxes of a great dance music record.