Despite warnings that he was jumping the gun, Roska releases his debut full-length on Rinse with nary a concern for how well ten of his tracks can sit side-by-side.
roska
Roska, TWC EP
To put it nicely, garage MC turned funky functionalist Roska isn’t exactly what you’d call a home listening guy. While his super-percussive tools work perfectly in the club, they hardly evolve enough to maintain your headphoned attention. Even in their intended environs, a DJ has little reason (aside from track length, which can occasionally push a tedious eight minutes) to choose one Roska track over another; they’e all basically some iteration of the same kicks-and-snares (plus supermassive bass) patterns for which the man born Wayne Goodlitt named his label. Admittedly, Roska’s jams have become slightly more intricate and interesting with each release, and his recent remix of Untold’s “Just For You” hinted more than ever at broader compositional horizons for his pitch-perfect drum samples. But the quality of the tunes found on the “TWC EP” — while falling far short of stone-cold classics — still comes as something of a shock. It’s as if this guy woke up one morning, ate Sven Weisemann for breakfast, made an appointment with Efdemin’s tailor, and became a fully-fledged dub house producer by midday. Behold the first 100-percent recommendable Roska record.