It’s been a good run for genre-defying producer Subeena, from taking part in the Red Bull Music Academy, to co-running Immigrant (later Imminent) Records and getting a 12″ released on seminal label Planet Mu. Now Subeena is releasing the third record on her very own label, Opit, later this month. The four-track EP features two originals (and vocals from Subeena herself), along with some superb remixes from Ghosts on Tape and Egyptrixx.
Mixpak caught up with Subeena in London to ask about her new sound and how the label was working out. Press play on the preview and read the questions after the jump.
What have you been doing since you last released a record yourself?
I released this guy called Milyoo, from the States. That took some time. It always takes me a bit of time to do that cos I do it all myself. That came out in the Spring and then I started preparing this new record ages ago so I’ve just been taking my time, I’ve been finishing off uni, I went home [to Italy] for two months where I made some more tracks.
You started up your new label Opit early last year. How is that going? How have you found the transition from your old label to your new one?
Pretty easy. I wasn’t really sure I wanted to start a new one that quickly but then I had a couple of tracks that I wanted to release so I sent them to Jackmaster asking if he might want to consider them for distribution and then he offered me a PND so it just went quite quickly.
Did it work out as you were expecting?
To a certain extent it has. I’ve come to a point now where i need to wait and see how I want to carry on doing it cos I don’t really want to switch to digital only but on the other hand it might be an option that I should at least consider.
Who else is going to be on the label?
Well for the moment it’s me, Milyoo and for the remixes Egyptrixx and Ghosts on Tape. I’ve got a couple of people I’d like to release but i need to work out how I’m going to do it. One of them does make amazing music and we’ve spoken about maybe releasing something but it’s like ambient, beatless stuff so I’ll have to first decide what format is going to work.
How do you go about picking people you want to release?
I know it sounds a bit simplistic but literally anything I like. Although I particularly like releasing people who are at the beginning, who haven’t had many releases, stuff that’s not just straightforward club bangers, stuff that’s harder to sell on vinyl because that’s the music that struggles to find a label. It’s probably cos I had the same kind of problems. You’ve gotta start somewhere. People always seem to take longer to decide whether or not to release that stuff because it might not sell but I like to release people who are right at the beginning of their career and haven’t had 10 vinyls out already. It’s nice to find someone to grow with.
So how was it starting a label at this point, when the market isn’t great?
Well maybe financially it wasn’t the greatest moment. And vinyl isn’t really selling as much as it used to, or so they say. Then again if you’re not in it for the money, as long as you cover what you spend then it’s fine. Especially if you’re releasing other people, if you can’t give them much financial gain at least you can offer them exposure. It might get them more releases, more gigs. For me it was probably the best moment in terms of the attention I’d got from the last few records cos maybe if I’d waited another 2 or 3 years I would have got less attention, people wouldn’t remember about what I did.
Your sound has changed a bit for this new record – why have you decided to use vocals this time around?
Because I’ve wanted to for quite a while. I’ve been trying to sing for years, but not very successfully up until now. I tried to be in a band for a couple of months, but it wasn’t a great idea! I’d given up, i was like ‘I’ll never do it’. I’d had some specific myths in terms of what I thought you could do with electronic music, so i thought ‘no way am I going to put vocals in there’ and I guess you just get bored of doing the same thing over again and I do really enjoy singing so I was like ‘ok let’s try it’. So I’ve been trying hard to make the transition from not having them at all to having them dry and more song-like. These aren’t really like a song, the vocals are in the background so I’ve been going slowly towards the whole singing thing. It also has an effect on the rest of the track, it means that the instrumentals are not more simple exactly but have less melodies and there’s less going on in some tracks.
Are you going to sing in Italian?
I don’t think that’s going to happen!
Do you think adding vocals could change your audience?
I guess it depends on how you use the vocals. If they’re in the background and work as an instrument then it probably won’t change too much. It’s more a matter of worrying whether people who used to like my stuff before will still like it, but if i’m trying to attract new people there’d have to be more of a song. I don’t think I’ve got anyone new out of it at this stage.
How did you go about choosing your remixers?
I liked both of them already; I really liked the tunes I’d heard by Ghosts on Tape so i did kind of want to do something with him anyway. I loved what Egyptrixx was doing and he’s been quite helpful, I like his attitude towards music so it was nice to work with him as a person really. It was interesting to see what they were going to do with this vocal stuff.
What’s your production process? How do you go about starting and finishing a track?
I’ve got a really simple set-up that hasn’t changed in a long time. I just have a laptop and sometimes a midi keyboard and speakers, a soundcard and that’s it. I’ve never thought about how I start really, it’s more that I try things out rather than having an idea already. I always tend to play around and see what sounds good. I mixdown my own stuff, I really enjoy it to be honest. I don’t know how it sounds but I’ve had a couple of decent mixdowns where the mastering didn’t really change much. I enjoy it and I’m not too bothered about it sounding killer at the club. It’s just cool trying to get your stuff to sound good. I like the mentality of having the minimum and trying to use it as best as you can rather than having 24 controllers and 48 VSTs.
How long does it take you to finish a track?
I can finish them within a day but it takes me a while to actually get into production mode. So that’s why I make most tracks at my parents house [in Italy], so i’ve got some time to get in the right mindframe and then it just takes me a few hours because I can really focus and get loads of things done.
So do you have to lock yourself away?
I kind of do. I do make tracks in London as well but less than i do at home just because i don’t have many days off and even if I take a couple of hours off it’s not really enough for me to start writing something. So if I’m in the right mood I’m really quick but it’s the whole preparation bit before.
If you take yourself away to Italy, does that change how your sound comes out, in terms of being influenced by your surroundings?
I don’t really go out much there. It might be the case but i can’t really tell. Maybe i should lock myself up in London and switch off my phone for like 2 weeks and see what happens.
People would probably call the police and interrupt your production process! Where do you feel you fit in category-wise now, everyone is always calling you cross-over and you got grouped into the dubstep category, a bit erroneously maybe?
Well I did really like dubstep for a while, I did put on a dubstep night, I knew a load of producers that were doing stuff back then, it was a community thing really and when I was releasing stuff back then there were only like 3 or 4 girls producing in the whole scene so I guess that’s why I got stuck in that category.
Your name always gets dropped along with Ikonika I guess. But your sound is completely different.
It is now yeah. I was trying to make dubstep for a while but it didn’t sound very good. At first I used to get booked for dubstep nights and then I wouldn’t play dubstep and I think it was creating some confusion. Generally it’s over now. If people call me for remixes or to get tracks done, they know my latest stuff but every now and again I get the odd follower on Twitter called ‘super dubstep follower check my dubstep beats’ and your mutual friends are Skream and Benga.
So what do you listen to now?
I don’t like many things. It takes me ages to find something I like and when I like it I listen to it over and over again cos I know how hard it is to find something I like. I found some tracks by this guy called Caural that i quite like, i like this other producer called Samoyed who’s one of the people i was hoping to release, and there’s this German producer called Jan Jelinek who also produces under the aliases Gramm and Farben, who I quite like…and some of Lukid’s stuff. I don’t have massive influences or one particular artist I’m following, just one off tracks. It sounds really pretentious but I’ve been listening to a few of my tracks a lot lately….
And so will we.
Subeena’s latest, Opit 003, is out at the end of October, via all the usual and specialist outlets.
