INTERVIEW: DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ
I’ve already written at length about DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ’s music since I discovered her fifth full-length, Charmed, shortly after its release in November. That record, which paired house beats and a “plunderphonics” approach with a joyous irrepressibility, introduced her to a slew of new fans. Yet throughout a young career defined by both prolificness and fearlessly-long album lengths – nine hours of music across five albums in less than four years! – she’s remained an elusive figure, recognizable only for her pixelated renderings of ‘90s witchcraft-themed primetime comedies. Despite how fandom tends to operate, that’s really how it should be; that sense of mystery can only heighten the charm of her work.
That being said, I consider myself super fortunate that I got the chance to conduct an interview with the mysterious producer herself! Take a look below if you want to learn a little more about this legend in the making.
-Note: This interview was conducted via email. Some responses were mildly edited for formatting.
– You’ve mentioned that Charmed marks the end of a conceptual pentalogy of records. Without having to dive too much into it, what’s the vibe surrounding that concept? Is there anything you want to add that might guide a listener through these records?
The albums are definitely a journey, one of acceptance and coming to terms with yourself. There’s many themes that repeat throughout the albums and a lot of tracks have sister-songs (for instance, “Life In California” is twinned with “All The Beautiful Things [U Do],” “Tonight Let’s Focus On The Future” is a sister of “Goodbye,” “Right Now” has lyrical similarities to “You Might Be Surprised [To Find Yourself Singing It Right Now],” “Spellbound” is a sister track to “Goodnight,” “Night Drive 1 & 2”, “Feel The Pain I & II,” etc).
“My Baby, I Become Unhinged” is meant to be a simulation of the effects of catatonic depression; the dazed, hazy heaviness that weighs down and around, the sound of people laughing and going about their lives while you feel absolutely nothing. The lyrics also all tie into the theme, another person(s) letting the sufferer be themselves within the depression and the second-personality of the sufferer being able to remember the first-personality’s feelings and emotions, trying to help them back.
There’s a lot of similar concepts of sound and feeling, where lyrics will seem to swell and subside for emphasis, hidden messages in the dialogue or in-joke references in riffs and chord sequences. The albums cover many feelings of love and romance, but there’s also a loneliness and sadness that makes you wonder how many of these feelings are real and how many are imagined, how many are present and how many were lost. There’s a journey that begins with learning and ends with understanding, and I think that’s evident by the stages of Hope, Elation, Disillusionment, Realisation/Acceptance and Closure.
– Your work feels like it’s the product of a ton of experience! When did you start making music? Did you grow up in a musical household; did you receive a formal education? Or did you just pick it up one day and realized it was a natural fit for you?
I’ve been making music for a while, but nothing ever really got any traction until around Makin’ Magick! I’ve had zero training or lessons, that’s why a lot of things I do are probably very “wrong” but I just try to do what sounds okay to me, haha! I’ve always loved music since I was a kid and have been extra-sensitive to emotions in music, even if it’s not a particularly emotional piece of music. I can often find something beautiful or abstractly inspiring about any songs I love.
– What made you want to produce house records? Were there any formative records or acts that turned you on to the genre?
When the Caustic Window LP came out in 2014, I wanted to try doing some tracks that sounded like house music recorded onto cassettes and left in the car for the sun to wear down and the cat to paw at (wasn’t most of the SAW master and Xtal in particular cat-mauled?) and I wanted to use entirely period accurate synths and drum machines. I only did a couple of tracks, but when I heard DJ Seinfeld on HypeM in 2016 I realized what incredible potential there was for this sound.
– DJ Sabrina records loosely recall the sampling wonderland of the Avalanches’ first record. I find that individual artists have wildly different approaches to using samples; what’s yours? Do you usually write the music first and then seek out samples to support it? Are there any tracks you’ve done where you came across a video or song and decided you just had to write a track around it?
Yeah, all the time! Sometimes, the music might come first and samples will provide the “live” feel, but so much of the time a track will be based around a sample from an amazing part of a song or little bit of dialogue. Btw, Since I Left You is one of my FAVORITE albums ever! As a kid I always loved how the album was so different to other dance albums that tried to update 60’s and 70’s samples to sound modern, but The Avalanches did the opposite, they made the modern production parts sound like they’re from the 60’s and 70’s. They also used contemporary house samples from Roule and 80’s electro-pop samples and it all sounded just as delicious and vinyly as everything else, very similar to how DJ Shadow made 90’s sounds blend together with 70’s and 80’s samples. I also love the creepy uncanny valley/memento mori photography vibe SILY had (when I was a kid it was such a strong feeling!) where everything sounds *almost* alive but also dead/reanimated at the same time…
– The diversity of your samples suggest you devour music omnivorously. Are there any genres or styles of music, recent or not, you’ve been digging lately that you’d want to talk about?
I have such a huge collection of music, so many different styles and decades and genres, it’s impossible for me to pick out one particular influence! My mixes tend to cover the diversity of my favorite styles, but even then there’s a lot of genres I’ve never used in my mixes. I’ve tried making lists and naming favorites but it’s too hard!
– Do you have a favorite record? OR which records, or pieces of music, can you point out and say, “These are my absolute favorites,” or “These will always be a part of my heart?”
I always say The Avalanches’ Since I Left You and Daft Punk’s Homework are two of my biggest influences, but so is Genesis’ We Can’t Dance, Bruce Hornsby’s Scenes From The Southside, Fatboy Slim’s Better Living Through Chemistry, The Chemical Brothers’ Dig Your Own Hole… and that’s mostly dance and pop music, there’s also so much alternative rock and country pop that inspires me!
– This is a weird one, but I thought I’d ask. One of your signature tracks is “All The Beautiful Things U Do,” which centers around a graduation speech. What is that song about? Is the central question of the song self-directed? I ask because I’ve found, for personal experience and from others’, that people sometimes write songs from themselves as much as, if not more, for others.
I spent weeks trying to figure out how to do a track like “Winona” without ripping off “Winona,” haha. Once I’d (sort of reasonably) reverse-engineered the synth sound, I wanted to find a chord sequence that was similar but not the same. The inspiration for that kinda inspired the chord sequence being used for different sections in both regular-time and half-time (there’s only one chord sequence in the whole track).
The reverb on the scratching was inspired by DJ Shadow and The Wiseguys, they’re two of the only people I’ve heard that used reverb on scratching. The track structure was also heavily inspired by two of my favorite songs of all time, Fatboy Slim’s “Santa Cruz” and Groove Armada’s “Jeanette’s Groove,” both of which build a completely unexpected coda out of previous parts that you never expected to go together. I wanted the vocal part to be rhythmic when the drums come back in, but when you hear the vocal at the beginning you can’t really tell it has rhythm and it takes 6 minutes until you hear it again. It was a lot of fun to do!
I loved the production and vibe of “Winona,” but I thought the vocal sample could be taken somewhere else, a more abstract and profound statement. I usually try to avoid specifics in dialogue, so it can have a broader significance and feel less like it was taken out of context. I think the lyrics to “ATBTUD” are universal, they can definitely apply to everyone’s individual situation or truth and that was ultimately the intention.
– A lot about the project, from the album artwork to the choice of samples to the name itself, leans into nostalgia as a driving aesthetic. What does nostalgia mean to you? Is it mostly comforting, or mostly sadness, or an inextricable intertwining of the two?
Nostalgia plays a huge part in my music, almost exclusively! I mostly enjoy music, games and movies from my childhood and I like to live as much in that world as I can. I remember when I was really little and I would listen to the production and stereo imaging and layering or looping in tracks I loved and I wanted to make music that would inspire others as much as the music I loved inspired me (which is why I’m so personally grateful for every kind message or support from a listener I receive!). I think nostalgia is just how I enjoy everything, so for me it’s very much the norm!
There’s a Buckethead interview that really drives home my own feelings: “I can work anything into that character and make it totally work: all the things I love in my life, like Disney, Giant Robot, Texas Chainsaw. Even though I’m wearing a mask and have a character, it’s more real, more about what I’m really like, because I’m too shy to let a lot of things out. Every reason I became Buckethead and am Buckethead has to do with the way I live. It’s not because I thought it would be successful. I never use anything that isn’t part of what I really loved as a child or love right now.”
– A few listeners have spotted a sample of commentary from speedrunner pannenkoak2012 embedded in Charmed’s “Nyakuza Metro Cats”. Do you follow the speedrunning community? If so, have you ever attempted a speedrun yourself?
I’m a HUGE retro games fan and I LOVE speedruns (especially glitch-heavy!) and TAS videos, though I’d never be able to run myself, I spend too much time thinking about the game programming, haha! I sampled pannen because I was so moved by his tragic story from making the 0.5x A Presses video, I wanted to pay tribute to his genius. I kinda found out after that there were memes about him (which hurt him further) but I honestly meant it from a place of love. I think he’s just an absolute genius and wanted to find somewhere for his sweet voice to live on (the track was also heavily inspired by the vibe of the Hat In Time DLC, so it tied the track together nicely).
– After five records and over ninety songs you’ve built up a dedicated fanbase, with more discovering you every day. Is this your ideal place, or would you ever like to break out into something bigger? Or is it even part of the equation, and you’d be still be happy makin’ magic for just yourself and Salem?
Haha, yeah, me and Salem have great times! Actually, I originally was “in talks” with releasing Makin’ Magick on a well-known independent lo-fi house label, but after months of waiting and being asked to wait I just got bored of waiting. That’s the reason the first album is so long, because I kept makin’ magick while I was waiting, but ultimately I don’t think any labels would really know what to do with me! I release music when-it’s-ready and I hate waiting for people to hear music if it’s all finished and just sitting around getting dusty, and labels generally have really boring, slow release schedules. Having said all this, I’ve never been actually offered to be signed to a label, or a manager or a tour promoter or even play at a show (pre-covid) so I’ve never had the option anyways, haha!
Thanks for reading! You can check out DJ Sabrina’s music on Bandcamp, Soundcloud, and other streaming services!
Lives in Seattle, terrible diet, loves music, has hope for people