Searching For Peace with Roland Leesker

Roland Leesker has been at the heart of Get Physical for almost 15 years. He has helped shape and define its house sounds, broken new artists, and curated hit releases. He is also a producer who has contributed many great solo cuts in collaboration with the scene's greats, such as DJ Pierre and Roland Clark. He now serves up his most complete and impressive body of work to date with "Searching for Peace."

Leesker's musical journey began by cutting mix tapes of his favorite songs from the radio. The joy of finding danceable tracks from the early years of electronic music "made me feel very happy and peaceful, and that gave me an early inspiration for what I wanted to do with my life." Since then, he has continued to search for the perfect tracks, A&R innovative new artists, and work closely with talented people everywhere, from Croatia to India to Africa and Brazil. Now, after putting so much time into the careers of others, "I thought it could be nice for a change to produce a few new tracks myself, focusing on what got me here in the first place: Music and the joy it brings, creating it. So this is me, "Searching For Peace"."

The adventurous and accomplished album kicks off with "Keep On," a lithe and playful house cut with lush chords and hooky vocals. The gorgeously warm and natural "Summer House" is perfect outdoor dancing music with rousing strings, and the low-slung "Let It All Go" is a collaboration with Dan Diamond that brings hip-swinging claps and a spoken word sample that muses on modern life, but the standout feature is the tumbling lead synth motif that draws you in deep. "Motor City Interlude" captures the sounds of a bustling party happening in the room next door, and "All These Lives" with Jacinto samples a classic melodic riff but works it into shimmering and late-night broken beats with a smoky spoken word.

The superb "Haus Musik" is an irresistibly flashy and acid-laced peak-time sound with retro chords, jacked-up drums, and raw vocal stabs. "What Is" gets deeper with a classic early Chicago bassline underpinning rugged synth lines, and analog percussion and synth strings all amping up the energy levels before "Respect" is a rousing and synth-laced cut that leans into a captivating hi-tek Detroit style groove. The album comes to a beautiful close with "Afunukuthula" featuring Xhosa vocals from Sobantwana that tell the tale of newborn life around deeply moving synths and piano chords.

Roland Leesker - Searching For Peace (LP)
Release Date 30th August 2024
Label Get Physical Music

Tracklist
01. Roland Leesker - Keep On
02. Roland Leesker - Summer House
03. Roland Leesker, Dan Diamond - Let It All Go
04. Roland Leesker - Motor City Interlude
05. Roland Leesker, Jacinto - All These Lives
06. Roland Leesker - Haus Musik
07. Roland Leesker - What Is
08. Roland Leesker - Respect
09. Roland Leesker, Sobantwana - Afunukuthula