Rumours and rumblings of this mythical creature have been reverberating around the hardcore scene for well over a year now. Sharkey's latest studio monkey has been gently shaped and fine tuned and his unmistakable, unshakeable productions are being heard on compilation albums like Bonkers and his DJ sets at raves like Slammin and HTID. Fresh faced, 22 year-old, Rikki Arkitech is finally branding his imprint on hardcore and he is now added to some of the undisputed innovative producers within the Nu Energy Collective.
With breakdowns that send rushes through your body like in 'Dehumanise' and build ups which are spine tinglingly euphoric like in 'Life is a Construct', his distinct and emotive tracks are playing havoc on dance floors: his opinion on this is "My favourite emotion from music is bittersweet, where it is kind of happy but sad at the same time and its up to the person who listens to it to decide. Ambiguous is the word Im looking for, because I like my riffs to have a happy tinge to them but also a sad tinge, so whatever mood you are in you will get what you want".
From the age of six, young Arkitech always wanted to be rock God Jon Bon Jovi! His elder sister introduced her rock star brother to hardcore for the first time when he was 13, playing him Dreamsuprise by Fade and Bananaman from the original Hardcore Heaven compilation: It was really fast and crazy to my ears compared to what I had heard before. I didnt really like hardcore because I thought there was no talent in it and refused to let myself like it, as if I was refusing to admit I was gay! It was at least another three years before I went back to it and listened to it over and over again. This led to him getting into the cheesier side of hardcore. It wasnt until a trip to Wax City when Kaos played him Take Me Up by Kevin Energy that he really got into freeform: "I didnt really like freeform before I'd heard that track. At the time, its appeal was possibly a little less instant for the listener, it was a bit esoteric. But when I heard Take Me Up I was like wow this is everything I want to be in a tune and it completely shifted my interest.
With an ambition to make music, being chosen by Sharkey to be trained up in the studio was without doubt the start of what will no doubt be a very successful career producing music. Being chosen over at least thirteen people was enough for Rik to take the decision to drop his degree in Media Technology at Kingston University and focus on the expertise that Sharkey could give him. Jon has again proved his diamond status in nurturing a young producer and passing on his knowledge: The main thing he taught me was to keep it dance floor friendly really. I was trying to be slightly too different to begin with and I was trying to do really strange riffs just to try and not be the same. I think the key is to emulate your contemporaries and once you can do that then you can begin to create your own sound and evolve from there. As much as he taught me loads of stuff it was also an awakening for new techniques as I was still using old methods.
With freeform evolving at a rate of knots Rikkis take on it is that: "The lines between UK hardcore have blurred completely just because a lot of hardcore is taking on ideas from freeform. You still have your purist freeform but there is no point being purist when you can do other things that work on the dance floor, so you can put piano in a track and it can still be freeform. I think because UK hardcore producers have started to integrate freeform ideals into their tracks, surely the whole point and ideology of freeform has achieved its mission and if the whole of hardcore is varied, crazy and without any barriers then freeform will cease to exist and that is good because it has lived its purpose". When he's not totally absorbed in music, he spends the luxury of his free time watching Manga DVDs, having disagreements with inanimate objects and confirming his status of ten pin wizard.
The future looks set for us hearing lots more about Arkitech with hints to taking his sound down under and getting more established within the scene. We can also expect more diverse productions from vocal tracks to his new mission to make remixes of hardcore tracks in a slow, 100 bpm, trip hop style: Basically all the bits from hardcore accept the kick drums and the bass lines, just as a musical thing. Also I want to do some more hard trance and gabba but other than that its hardcore and some cheesy stuff and some country and western and some speed garage, speed garage till I die! So really we can expect just about anything!
