We all know that Tom Caruana is one serious Beat-smith. It’s like he doesn’t sleep. There’s just a relentless flow of quality productions. As well as doing a lot of original work he also lends his skills to the art of remixing. I caught up with him and asked him a few questions about The Rough Versions album which he collated in 2007.

How did the album come about?

I started off by making the MF Doom (Favourite Ladies) & Busta Rhymes remix without thinking I was gonna do a remix album. Then I got hooked on finding accapellas, first from various 12’s of mine or friends, buying from Rarekind, and downloading from the net. I made about 60 remixes over 4 months, and worked more on the ones I liked the most.

What was it that appealed to you so much about making remixes?

I was so into making them cos it was quick and you could get results in minutes and tell if it was gonna work out nice or not. All remixes start by me getting the accapella in time and then building the beat around it. Normally a basic drum pattern and then see where it goes from there, sometime the first idea works and sometimes it takes a few.

OK, cool. So what tracks are your favourites?

My favourites are:

• Dangerous : was getting into using more keyboards / vst’s when I made this.
• The Get Down : a more recent one with lots of Juno (Roland Synth)
• I Go On : I think this sounds like its from Lyte’s early 90’s era.
• REC Room: well happy how I managed to work the whole of an instrumental version of Girl (The Beatles) over this - un-looped!
• Audio Visual : made in my lounge with me on drums, guitar, bass, juno - the fun way to make tunes!
• Change The Beat : love all the sections on this. There were many samples tried, so the ones that made it had to fight to get there.

You must have accumulated a huge number of remixes. What happened to the ones that didn’t make it on to the album?

It would sometimes take a few times to get a remix right, so a lot got made….resulting in the bonus tracks and beats being used for other projects. Grand Agent used about 5 of these beats. I have made an album with Grand Agent called ‘The Ghetto Aint A Place’, it would be good to get a remix album of that too.
I might get into it again at some point but I’m focusing on other stuff at the moment. I’m looking to get other producers to remix tracks for Tea Sea Records to release a ‘non-bootleg’ remix album.

How would you best describe the The Rough Versions?

It’s a bootleg remix album of American rappers. As a fun project that has to be given out free.

Tracklisting:

1. Dangerous - Busta Rhymes [3:45]
2. You Are That Somebody - Aaliyah & Timberland [4:56]
3. The Get Down - The Alcoholiks [3:57]
4. I Go On - MC Lyte [4:59]
5. Audio Visual - J-Live [4:11]
6. Change The Beat - Viktor Vaughn [3:31]
7. Check The Flava - Ak Skills [4:50]
8. Thick - DITC (AG, Big L & OC) [3:15]
9. Tight - Rah Diggah [3:34]
10. Enjoy Your Stay - Declaim [4:43]
11. Freestyle - Masta Ace [3:19]
12. REC Room - Inspectah Deck [2:37]

Download (high quality): Tom Caruana - The Rough Versions

If you like this, follow links to Caruana’s website and make sure you check out the Bonus tracks. Also, shout in TC’s direction for requests acapellas (original & bootleg). Tom is always looking for feedback, so if you have any please drop it in the cheeky box below!