In conversation with SPFDJ

Catching up with the queen of techno as she releases her debut EP Heel Thyself

Herrensauna resident, Motherlode head, Intrepid Skin label founder,  and GLAMCULT #132 star, – SPFDJ needs little introduction. Serving as hard techno’s highest priestess, she has been blessing the decks and blowing the subwoofers of the underground’s hottest stages since 2016 with her stabbing selections. On her newest venture, Heel Thyself,  little is left to be desired. The EP oozes cunty confidence, while productions read razor sharp as sexy stilettos and bass-heavy punches clomp down on our airways. We caught up with Lina mid-air on her flight back to Amsterdam to chat about her journey from DJ to producer, club culture and AI.

Firstly, how are you today? Where do our questions find you?
Right now, I’m sitting on a flight back to Amsterdam from the US, where I had my first big festival tour over there. I’ve been working nonstop the whole weekend, because on top of my three gigs in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Miami, I also had three important deadlines on Monday, so in between my sets and on all my flights, I was finishing off those projects. Physically, I’m tired, but I feel incredibly elated and inspired, like this trip unlocked a new creative surge.

You are releasing your debut EP, Heel Thyself, at the end of the week. How are you feeling ahead of the EP release?
I am honestly so excited and feeling so much pride, not because I think the music is perfect, but because it feels so much like me. It’s been many years of working really hard in the studio, and I’m finally ready to share it with the world, and I feel like this EP is a good start in getting my authentic vision across.  I’m also just so proud to be releasing music at all; my 13-year-old self didn’t believe I’d ever be capable, and it’s been a long and drawn-out psychological war with her to eventually overcome that internalised belief. Now it doesn’t really matter so much what other people think of my music because overcoming that limiting belief was the real win for me here; it feels hugely significant.

As a DJ, what was the journey like from DJ to producer? What drew you to start creating your own music?
I think having been a DJ for so long before starting seriously with production was both a blessing and a curse. It meant I already had my taste and preferences finely tuned; I knew what kind of sounds I wanted to be making, but this also meant the bar was higher for my actual production skill. It was like my ear was always 10 steps ahead of what I could technically make, and so it was hard not to be discouraged and disheartened the whole time. I think every producer has this to some extent when they are starting out, but my extensive experience as a DJ that had trained my ear for years magnified this problem tenfold. I had to play catch-up with my technical skill by heavily skewing the balance of time spent in the studio versus time spent listening to new music, and still, it’s not anywhere near balanced, but I’m happy with where I am at the moment and excited to keep improving!  I always wanted to make music; my teenage self was trying to write songs, but then that internalised belief got in the way. Then, the deeper I got into my DJ career, the more I felt like there were gaps in the kinds of music that were available for me to play. Often, I would have a wish to play a certain type of track in my sets, but nothing existed that felt like it fit, and so I was convinced that I had to make it myself. That’s how it started, very much from a DJ perspective of ”what would I like to play”, but the time in the studio has since turned into a more therapeutic and necessary part of maintaining my mental health. If I don’t create for a while, I don’t feel good.

Although the sound of Heel Thyself is signature sharp and heavy, the work is described as vulnerable and self-reflective. How do you place vulnerability in your work?
I think any producer feels some level of vulnerability with their work because it inherently shares a part of their inner world. This EP also feels vulnerable to me, though, because of some of the psychology themes or personal experiences that inspired the tracks, for example, the intro track, which is about Cluster B personalities, or F*ckboi, which is self-explanatory. It feels very personal to me.

I saw that your music video for That Stilletto Track was made with AI by Katia Schutz. What was the collaborative process like in making the video?
This whole project was quite DIY. I had heard about Katia from my label manager, Rosy, and so I knew she could turn still images into video using AI tools. I then messaged my videographer and photographer, Vincent and asked if he could come to my gig in Paris to do a shoot after my set. Since the track has a stiletto theme, I packed some of my favourite heels and planned for the shoot to be a split between pictures just of my feet in heels and then pictures of me, and let Katia morph between those with the AI. Vincent and I  then walked around Paris, dragging my suitcase at 7 am in the morning, straight after my set, on zero sleep, but the pictures turned out great. Katia really understood where I was going with the video and was able to keep the raw aesthetic of the original photos while morphing in cool ways between them. I didn’t really need to give much verbal direction; the pictures spoke for themselves, and Katia delivered.

I read that you initially moved to Berlin to pursue a PHD in extragalactic astrophysics. As an artist with a background in STEM, what are your thoughts on AI?
It’s thrilling and unnerving in equal measure. I’m terrified because there is so little regulation, while the consequences could be devastating, and because we just can’t yet conceive of how and how much it is going to change things, like with any new technology that is truly paradigm-shifting. I am also concerned watching this AI bubble in the stock market just keep expanding, and I fear it’s going to be an enormous crash with so many regular people losing their pensions, etc. But then it’s also intriguing to see what’s going to be possible in the future with this technology. I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet compared to what’s coming.

As you are now based in Amsterdam, how do you find Amsterdam’s electronic scene in comparison to Berlin or London?
These cities have very clear differences to me. Berlin, with insanely long opening hours at most clubs and a stronger history of straight techno, seems to be more picky with what music is played in clubs. They love long sections of techno beats where tension builds in small elements, like they love nuance and sustained momentum. I think things are changing even there, though, more parties have been cropping up with a more social media type style of music and mixing – more breakdowns and drops, but generally many of the legacy clubs still favour music played in a more classically techno sense. Amsterdam, on the other hand, while still having some weekend-type parties, on average has much shorter opening hours and a very strong festival culture. I mean, no other country in the world has as many festivals per capita as the Netherlands, and I feel like it makes people more open-minded musically. They are more open to cross-genre sets, while still being music heads. Loads of people grew up in the Netherlands with their parents having been ravers or into electronic dance music, so they have good taste but are less strict on what genre is played. They love a speed garage track with a sick drop mixed into a techno set more so than the Berliners do. London is even more diverse than that. The UK has long pioneered different music genres; it invented all these new sounds like UK Garage, Jungle, Dubstep, Grime, UK Bass, etc. I think more so than any other place, they like fresh new sounds, things that don’t conform, which is something I resonate with a lot. Experimentation and rebellion. Every city has its own sonic personality, and it’s cool to identify it without it completely defining your set.

Could you share a cherished club memory?
First thing that comes to mind is the one time for Herrensauna in Berlin that I DJ’d topless. It’s the one and only time, and it was a response to this whole malarkey where Nastia went online to bash Daria Kolosova for having been “a topless DJ”, and she was trying to get people to stop respecting Daria as a result, and I just reacted viscerally to that. Like seeing a woman trying to publicly take down another woman like that, it was so ugly, and I just thought I’d go in and DJ topless too, like a statement of support or like, what’s the big deal, #freethenipple.  I stayed to party after my set for like 17 hours or something, just super free and having fun with my Herrensauna crew, swinging on a swing with DJ Saliva, and almost knocking ourselves out.

Most recent nonmusical inspiration?
I’ve been feeling quite inspired by different senses of scale lately. Even just thinking about like single-use foam earplugs and how many of those are used and tossed every single day across the planet, it’s an insane amount and just fills me with an indescribable feeling of awe and fear; it’s just too big to comprehend. It’s a feeling that crops up everywhere, the number of flights across the globe daily, the number of thoughts people have a day, the number of distinct species of animals and insects on this planet, the distance to other celestial objects, size and mass comparisons, even of microbes to mammals… Scale overwhelms the mind, and I am excited to try translating that overwhelm into sound.  Besides that, I overheard a girl trying to negotiate herself into the Hocus Pocus festival in Miami, and I want to make a track with her direct quote because it felt so iconic, so I wrote it down, and I’ll get cracking on that when I’m next in the studio! There is inspiration all around once you open yourself up to it.

Track you keep coming back to?
A few tracks spring to mind here, like Studio Dondert – ’98, Brain 37 – Shake With The Devil, or Falhaber – Rave Nation. These are tracks I’ve been playing since very early in my DJ journey and still sometimes play today. Interestingly, they’re all acid tracks? I love acid, but rarely find exactly the kind of acid tracks I want to hear.

What song off of Heel Thyself are you most excited to play in the club? 
I’m always really excited to start my sets with my intro track, Cluster B Intro. It resets the vibe from the previous DJ, no matter what they were playing before me. The tension-filled synth throughout the beginning, the eerie vocals, and the way the drums go into a triplet pattern, speeding it up unexpectedly at the end, give it quite an epic feel. Then just hit them with a build-up and drop from another track mixed into the very end, and ba,m you’ve come in really strong.  I also love playing “That Stiletto Track” quite early in my sets to set that ravey, sassy tone, and The Hot in Psychotic for when I want forward bass propulsion but a sparse drop with less hi-hats, in my head I call it a “drop-out” drop, and it can be very effective after a section of more driving hats and percussion. I love playing them all, though. I wrote them partly to fill certain holes in my DJ sets, so they were literally made to be played by me. If other people also like them and play the game, that’s an amazing bonus to me.

Current fav pair of heels?
Definitely my duck-toed boots from B-Hive, a Chinese designer! They’ve been a staple at my gigs for months! They’re so cute and different with the webbed toe-shaped front and the cute curved metal heel. Very versatile too, even for date night, you can wear an elegant black satin dress and just slap these boots on and instantly you are fancy but with such a cool edge. Shouts to B-Hive