Get Physical Director Roland Leesker delivers a journey though vintage house…

Roland Leesker has been immersed in electronic music since the 80’s, starting his career as a house DJ in Frankfurt and quickly becoming a resident at major clubs like Wild Pitch, XS, and Dorian Gray. Today, Leesker is best known for his affiliation with Get Physical Records, where for 15 years as Managing Director he’s been at the heart of operations, helping shape and define its sounds and breaking new artists.

From studying international finance and law in three counties to working high profile roles at Virgin Music and Ministry of Sound, Leesker carries the caliber of experience that sees him receice invitations to be a keynote speaker at international music summits like ADE.

Recently, he took time away from tinkering in the background to release his debut album, ‘Searching for Peace’. Released on Get Physical, it’s a love letter to house music in all its forms: “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.’



On this mix he expands on that with a selection filled with his favourite house tracks, or as he findly names them, ‘his sweetest, sweetest treasures’. Across 60 minutes, he showcase the genre’s most enduring tracks and underground classics that features the likes of Roy Ayers, Tevo Howard and Dj. T.

Name: Roland Leesker
Location: Berlin, Germany
Labels affiliated with: Get Physical Music
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I grew up in the middle of two sisters and for all of us it was obligatory to learn an instrument. Our parents insisted on this rule as they both loved music very much. My mother played the guitar and loved to sing to it as well.

She played and listened to a lot of classical music and of course all the local traditional songs they used to sing as children already. My father was mainly into jazz and blues and collected some nice vinyl himself, from Paul Robeson and The Golden Gate Quartet to Milva and Gerswhin.

There was always music in our house, either from the record player, my mother, sisters or me practicing our instruments, or my father singing his favorite songs very loudly on a Saturday morning to wake us up. So I learned to play the guitar and my favorite music to practice was Blues, and later on, once I had an electric guitar, a lot of Jimi Hendrix songs…

When I heard Rapper´s Delight by The Sugar Hill Gang in 1979. I was 7 years old, put on my red Adidas track suit and tried to breakdance in our kitchen whilst my mom was cooking. 

Due to my mother I had a religious upbringing and served as an altar boy at the Catholic Church in a little suburb of Frankfurt, where I grew up. I must have been around 15 years old as two of the older altar boys asked me if I would like to join them for a party in Frankfurt on a Sunday afternoon, a so called ‘Tea Dance’.

I happily joined them as they were really kind and funny and this Tea Dance turned out to be a High Energy gay party. I was a totally pure soul with no knowledge of anything at this age. I totally fell in love with the energy of the music as well as the kindness and attention I received from all partygoers.

These days it’s mainly music on the verge of disco, funk and electronica. Roy Ayer – ‘Chicago’ from the album Silver Vibrations is a good example. Feeding my brain with thousands of (mainly electronic music) records over the last 35 years had quite an impact as well and melodies & track ideas just come up when I dream or am in nature. 

Curtis Mayfield – Curtis, as I am reading his biography at the moment.

2 x Technics 1210 turntables with needles from Taruya Tokio and 2 x Pioneer CDDJs, channeled through a Pioneer DJM 1000 mixer for DJing and Ableton for music production.

It took me more then 30 years to release my first album “Searching For Peace” just this year, so let´s see when I’ll be ready to speak about the next one …

I have decided to retire from DJing before it retires me so I play only a very few select shows each year. If I play, it´s mainly in Brazil, as  Brazil became my second home and it still has many places where one can dance in nature, so the next shows will be at The Edge club in São Paulo on November the 8^th and at the newly opened The Edge Club in Rio de Janeiro on the 9^th of November.

I wanted to use some classics from my vinyl collection, the ones that not too many people know, and I wanted to begin with “Chicago” by Roy Ayers, everything else just evolved during the mix.

Blade Runner.

Bol at the Island Brac in Croatia.

Balance-Walter Balance

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