Influences: Tooker on the Sounds Behind ‘Rosanera’ and His Live-Driven Electronic World
- 5 hours ago
- 5 min read
Tooker returns to SONARA with ‘Rosanera’, a record that feels like it’s been lived with.
Written years ago and shaped over time, it carries that sense of patience. Nothing rushed. Nothing forced. The live violin from Mathilde Marsal sits at the centre, stretching across the groove while the percussion stays light and controlled underneath.
It’s a track that reflects how he works: live instrumentation meets electronic structure; rhythm leads everything; space is allowed to exist.
That approach comes from a very specific set of influences. Not just club records, but moments that shifted how he understood production, musicianship, and what electronic music could actually hold.
Sébastien Léger - Superdrums
This was the first electronic track that truly grabbed me. As a drummer, the title alone pulled me in, but what I heard was something I didn't think was possible. Seven minutes of constantly evolving drum solos over a four on the floor groove, relentless but never aggressive, with this short, tight decay tech house sound I'd never encountered before. It had a musicality I didn't know existed in this world. I played it in every single set because it just carried this peak time energy that felt like it was made by a musician, not just a producer. Years later, I ran into Sébastien Léger at festivals around the world, and at one point, he told me he had programmed every single hit by hand. No samples of a real drummer. That blew my mind. The idea that a non-drummer could program something that rhythmically complex and human-sounding changed how I thought about electronic production entirely. It proved that this music could hold the same level of craft and intention I grew up chasing behind a drum kit.
Stimming - 1000 Dreams
This was the second electronic track that really stopped me. I remember having little get-togethers in our flat in Berlin with friends, four or five of us wearing different headphones, just listening. The production was unlike anything I'd heard. Psychedelic textures, extreme use of panning and the stereo field, field recordings of everyday life woven into this highly electronic, almost tribal groove that defines Stimming's rhythm section. So musical, so refined, so classy in a way that felt like the complete opposite of what I was used to hearing when I'd go clubbing. This track showed me what was actually possible. You could be deeply emotional, almost fragile, and still have this forward momentum that never lets go. For someone who had just arrived in Berlin after a decade playing in bands, it was a revelation. It rewired how I thought about production and made me want to go deep. That sense of patience and restraint stuck with me. Rosanera sat in my project folder for years before it felt finished, and part of that patience came from tracks like this one. The understanding that sometimes a track needs space and time to reveal what it actually wants to be.
Massive Attack feat. Hope Sandoval - Paradise Circus (Gui Boratto Remix)
This was another Berlin discovery, somewhere between 2010 and 2012, which is truly the period where I absorbed most of the influence that shapes what I do today. What hit me immediately was the live band energy. Real bass, real guitar, real piano, all played by Gui Boratto himself. It was a master class in how to maintain the original soul of a song while adding completely new elements to it. He played everything himself but never once changed the nature or the spirit of the original. That takes a level of musicianship and restraint that very few people have. For someone coming from a decade of playing in bands, hearing an electronic producer treat a remix with that kind of respect for the source material was incredibly inspiring. It showed me that the two worlds I came from, live instruments and electronic production, didn't have to be separate. They could lift each other if you let them breathe. When I was working on Rosanera, layering Mathilde Marsal's violin over the electronic foundation, I kept thinking about this balance. How can the human element and the machine coexist if neither one tries to dominate the other?
Emmanuel Jal, Henrik Schwarz - Kuar (Henrik Schwarz Remix)
This one goes deeper than music for me. I first went to Kenya when I was eight or nine years old, and that experience left a mark that never faded. I've had a deep connection with African rhythm ever since, studying percussion from a young age and carrying that love through everything I've done musically. So when I heard what Henrik Schwarz did with Emmanuel Jal's voice on this track, it felt like the perfect union of two things I care about most. My love for Africa and my love for electronic music, woven together with such grace and symbiosis. Jal's voice carries so much history, so much raw human experience, and Henrik treated it with incredible respect while building something completely dancefloor-ready around it. Released on Innervisions, it stood out because it wasn't trying to be clever. It was just honest. Years later, when I was travelling with KMLN, recording with musicians in Kenya and around the world, this track kept coming back to me. It was proof that you could take something deeply rooted in a specific culture and give it a new life on a dancefloor without stripping away its soul.
&ME - Everless
By 2012, I was fully immersed in Berlin's scene. Going out constantly, discovering new music every week, and starting to produce my own electronic tracks. Keinemusik was still this small collective putting out records that felt different from everything else. Everless hit me because of the groove. This hypnotic rhythm keeps you in a state of trance without saying too much and without saying too little. But what really struck me was the vocal. It talks about connecting to your body. Breathe. Connect with this part, then that part. It's almost like a preparation to become fully present and grounded inside yourself before letting go on the dancefloor. For someone who has always carried a deep interest in spiritual practice and presence, this track brought together a part of me that was often more personal, more private, and showed me it was possible to blend that into a dance music track. That realization opened a door. From that point on, I started collaborating with my father, who is a writer, a poet, and a spiritual guide. I love recording his incredibly wise words and weaving them into my music. That connection between the inner world and the dancefloor became a core part of what I do. Keinemusik went on to become one of the biggest forces in electronic music, but back then, they were just a crew of friends making exactly the music they wanted to make. That spirit resonated with me deeply. It's part of why I co-founded SONARA with David Mayer and Nico Stojan. Building something with the people you trust, releasing the music you believe in.
There’s a strong sense of continuity across all of these selections.
Live music thinking applied to electronic production. Cultural influence is treated with care. Emotion built through restraint, not excess.
You can hear all of that in ‘Rosanera’.
It doesn’t chase attention. It holds it. And that comes directly from the way these records shaped him.
Comments