QRTR

Awash with lavish synth textures, mangled ghostly vocals and head-bobbing house beats, QRTR’s debut album Drenched is certainly among the most characterful debuts we’ve spun recently. Built using a sound design ethos that resulted from years of professional study, merged with a love of transcendent house music, Meagan Rodriguez’s electronic alter-ego has carved a beguiling sonic identity.

The three main facets of her life as QRTR – that of sound designer, gigging DJ and an experimental electronic artist – are all integral to her approach to making tracks that skirt around the dance music genre, while still diving headfirst into its tropes if she feels the need… Examples of which include the trance-like movement of the hypnotic You Won’t Return, or the lo-fi synth stammers of My Bad.

Making up for lost time after 2020’s Covid restrictions with a full schedule of live shows, we spoke to Meagan the morning after a particularly exuberant set, to share her story, talk tech and explain more about her process.

Live to studio

cm: Hi Meagan, firstly can you give us a bit of background on yourself and how you first started music-making?

“I’ve loved music my whole life; I did music classes growing up in elementary school, and though I never specialised, I always loved it. My parents really encouraged it, too; they’d buy me different instruments every Christmas. They knew it brought me joy. Really, I didn’t start producing music until I was in middle school. My Dad bought me a Sony VAIO tower PC. It came with a bunch of Sony creative software. I used the early version of Acid as my main music