Since starting out back in 2007, Rietsch and Wagner have been hailed as “one of the biggest talents in drum and bass” by Grooverider and have smashed out dancefloor anthems Turn Up The Music, Climax and All Fall Down. They’ve released tracks on Breakbeat Kaos, AudioPorn, Viper Recordings, Renegade Hardware and more as well as releasing their 2010 debut record Above & Beyond and taking out Best Newcomer DJ at the 2010 Drum & Bass Arena Awards. “We met at a party in Krooked’s hometown on New Year’s Eve ‘06/’07 and came into talk about production and found out we are using both the same setups which made it easy to work together and share the experience and knowledge we had so far,” Rietsch says. “So we decided to make a tune together which ended up getting signed and been played on BBC Radio1. We always have a lot of fun producing together so we kept making tunes until we decided to stop our solo careers and proceed as Camo & Krooked only.”
The duo were then signed to Hospital Records in late 2010, joining the likes of London Elektricity, High Contrast, Netsky and other respected drum and bass artists on the label. “What we like most about working with Hospital is that they are leaving us all the freedom in our creative writing process, they don’t really tell us what to do, it’s all coming from us,” he says. “The Hospital crew feels like a second family, it’s a very good working atmosphere. And beside that, the Hospitality parties are just the best parties around; [we] love to play a lot of them. Tony [Coleman, CEO of Hospital Records] is a really nice guy as well and we are always happy to have meeting with them and talk about the next steps we will take.”
Since been signed to Hospital, the lads have played countless festivals and released their sophomore record Cross The Line which took out the Best EP/Album at the 2011 Drum & Bass Arena Awards. “Last summer was our first intense festival summer and all of them [shows] have been amazing, loving the vibes and the 100 per cent motivated crowds,” Rietsch exclaims. “There have been too much and too long crazy stories!” Aside from taking out the Best EP/Album at the Drum & Bass Arena Awards and Best Video for their game show themed clip for Breeze Block, the pair took out Best Producer as well and Rietsch says it was massive honour to receive the award. “That’s the most important category and we have been nominated with the likes of Noisia, Netsky and more,” he says. “The event was really nice, the whole drum and bass scene came together and every label had his own round table with a lot of drinks. It was a good community and between the award givings was always some entertainment on the stage for example by Ayah Marar, a really talented beat-boxer or a DJ afterwards.”
The lads have been improving their live show since kicking it off last September and are currently working on a remix album of Cross The Line. “Our next project is the remix album called Between The Lines,” he says. “We are more than happy with it and it contains remixes by friends of ours in the scene as remixes we have done for our own tunes. We can’t wait until it gets released!
“After that we will start working on our next album and make some more remixes and works for computer games or trailers…We have made some tunes for the soundtrack of SSX, Forza Motorsport 4 and a couple more games and [have] been included on the trailer for the forthcoming James Bond GoldenEye game.”
Excited to be heading down under for Heavyweight Soundz alongside drum and bass legend Andy C, DJ Fierce and MC GQ, the lads anticipate spending Australia Day “on the beach having a barbeque.”
“Our DJ set differs a lot from other DJ sets,” he says. “We always play out together. So we can use the magic of four hands on three or sometimes even four CDJs. We try to squeeze in as many tunes as possible without sounding too busy.
“We spend a lot of time trying to find the right mixes in the studio. We are bringing a lot of unreleased material with us, the whole remix album and a couple more forthcoming bits. We can’t wait to come to Australia as it’s winter here and summer there, have to catch up some sun…can’t wait for the party, we have looked up videos about it and it looks sick!”
BY ANNABEL MACLEAN
