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The Melbourne producer serves up a dance and electro explosion on the new project…

There’s no question that Aussie dance music is at an all time high right now, producers and DJs from all across the country serving up increasingly innovative and boundary-breaking tracks that help redefine where the genre is, and where it’s heading. House, techno, electro, breaks, the list goes on. They’re all genres reaching fever pitch in Australia right now. Yet, Indonesian-born producer Rino is impossible to place into just one of those categories; he exists in them all, and none of them at the same time.

It’s a dichotomy that’s embodied in his latest EP Flow On (out today). Comprised of four ethereal creations oscillating in the sonic realm, the project is the very epitome of quality over quantity. Beginning with the meditative title track, the EP starts on an otherworldly sentiment that listens like a literal manifestation of heaven on Earth. This isn’t just an EP for easy listening, however, with the Melbourne-based muso hitting you hard and fast with swathes of breaks and glitch on ‘Slinky’, with added euphoric vocal lines helping to add to the overall immersion that is the Flow On EP.

But what does it all mean though? It seems like we’re not meant to get all the answers, as the following track of the same name peppers you with elements of its two predecessors while venturing even further into the visceral and divine. There’s an air of euphoria permeating it that feels somewhat cathartic as well, which is nicely shown at the drop at 3:50 which throws all of its elements into the fire for a cauldron of feeling. Finally, he wraps things up with ‘Gloss’, utilising abrasive drums and hurtling drones to both throw you off balance and put you at ease. It’s definitely the right note to end the EP on, capturing an eerie mysticism that strikes at the heart of what the Flow On and Rino projects are about as a whole.

It’s definitely a whole lot jammed into just one EP. So, thought we’d catch up with the multi-instrumentalist producer to get a track by track walkthrough on the new EP. Check it below.

‘Flow-on’ 

When I made this track, I just knew that it had to be the title track for the EP. It encompasses everything I want my music to be – in terms of sonics, emotion and meaning. I was going through a pretty rough time in terms of not knowing what my future was going to look like – both in my personal life and music career. Writing this track was almost like an emotional catharsis for me; it pushed me to keep doing what I’m doing. Musically, the main bell melody was created using a random sequence generator, which I experimented with until I found something that made me feel a certain type of way. I then wrote the chords around it to make up the rest of the composition. This one’s heavily inspired by the likes of Four Tet , Bonobo and Seb Wildblood. 

‘Slinky’

I made ‘Slinky’ when I had COVID at the start of the year. I saw Bradley Zero and a bunch of other really good DJs at Sun Cycle and it inspired me to go more breaky and deeper on the drums/bass. The track has got this level of intensity that I love but still the sensitivity of the more ambient aspects of my music. I found that vocal sample and made it super high and verby, which added a lot of colour to the track. I added a keys/synth solo at the end because I got inspired by the works of Danish DJ/producer Tore Erot Kroknes, who mixed jazz and house/electronic in an intensity that was unmatched back then. 

‘Means’

‘Means’ is the track on the EP with the most number of iterations. I have literally 4 or 5 different versions of the track with a completely different melody in each. Some of the main elements stayed in all the versions but it was those vocal chops that made the track what it is now. It’s the only track on the EP where you can hear actual words being sung, and usually I’m not a big fan of that, but for this track I felt like the words added a whole another dimension to the title ‘Means’. I added a bunch of field recordings of birds and nature sounds around where I used to live in North Melbourne in the production, which I thought made the track more emotional and poignant. The idea was to create this big euphoric, but sentimental space. 

‘Gloss’

‘Gloss’ has to be my favourite track on the EP. It’s got elements of downtempo/ambient but also electro/techno. It’s got a special place in my heart and do hope that it one day gets used in an indie coming-of-age movie with beautiful landscape shots of kids riding their bikes into the sunset haha.

Rino’s debut EP Flow On is out now. You can buy/stream it here. Be sure to follow him on Instagram to stay up to date on all of his latest projects.