DJ SABRINA THE TEENAGE DJ

Plunging into a warm bath; admiring a summer sunset; reuniting with an old friend; these are all mental images that came to mind while listening to Hex, the new album by plunderphonics artist DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ. Across ten albums over seven years, the anonymous artist has developed her own mutant form of house music, one marked by extensive sampling of music, TV shows and movies from the past half-century. Hauntological in concept yet buoyantly optimistic in practice, whereas artists like Kode9 and Burial incorporate aesthetics of the past to suggest distance and loss, DJSTTDJ's soundscapes are buoyantly optimistic. Songs like “Because Love” and “I'll Always Be There” from last year's four-hour-long Destiny are worlds away from dance music's preferred mode of colourless anhedonia. Comparatively svelte at two hours, Hex contains more of DJSTTDJ's heart-on-sleeve emotionality with some of her sharpest songwriting yet. Read the interview below, and listen to “Quittin' The Business”, her exclusive mix for TANK.

TANK Your albums are marked by their exceptional length, with Hex being one of your shorter releases at 2 hours. Artists like Taylor Swift and Drake use long album durations as a means of optimising streaming algorithms, but I suspect something different is happening here. Tell me about your approach to duration.

DJSTTDJ Originally I made my first album for a label that messed me around for a year and ghosted me but kept saying “Oh no, don’t release it by yourself, we’ll do something, yeah yeah yeah”. I kept making tracks and ended up with two albums worth. I put them all together as one album since there’s no physical limitation in the digital age, and it kind of set a standard for me. I make the albums long enough that I’m not expecting more (usually around the 1hr 40-2hr mark, but sometimes much longer!). Famous, celebrity artists grifting for streams seems like a waste of time, aren’t they already stream-maxxing?

TANK I’m interested in how your project questions linear perceptions of time. Much of what you sample is cheesy ephemera from the past four decades, which paradoxically creates a feeling of constant present tense. What is your philosophy when it comes to sampling the past?

DJSTTDJ There are so many magical TV shows, movies and so much music that has gotten left behind, so many shows that never got a second season, artists who only had one album and quit the business or got rejected, movies that haven’t been released on Blu-Ray or Amazon Prime. It eases my existential dread by giving some of these forgotten works a reimagining. If only for a moment they may relive a fragment of their prospective glory that might’ve been.

TANK The emotional messaging in your music is intensely positive, to the point where it makes me mildly unsettled. Where does the sincerity emanate from? Is it a riposte to an overly serious electronic music landscape?

DJSTTDJ My songs have always sounded sadder and darker to me than they probably did to other people initially, although now I think most people “get” the sound I’m going for. I’ve never liked the kind of image that the majority of electronic artists have associated themselves with for the last couple of decades, I’d prefer a striking aesthetic that either intrigues or repulses an unfamiliar listener. Musically, I don’t have a single genre I draw inspiration from: I try to make songs that will make me cry and/or get chills. If I’ve done that enough times, the album is probably ready for release.

TANK The covers of some of your recent releases have nodded to Kate Bush, Daft Punk and Lauren Bacall. What inspires your visuals?

DJSTTDJ Childhood nostalgia, interesting imagery that gives me a familiar feeling, a visual idea that I can use to propagate a satirical concept; I rarely take anything very seriously so much of my graphical art is some kind of parody or has a double meaning, usually inspired by an older work that’s been forgotten about (or recently made very, very popular).

TANK You’ve released a significant number of albums on cassette. What is it about the medium that appeals to you?

DJSTTDJ It’s a perfectly average medium! CDs are quite expensive to get glass-mastered and can only hold 80-odd minutes, vinyls are very expensive and can barely hold 20 minutes per side. Glass-mastered CDs and vinyl are quite coveted, vinyl a little more so. Tape isn’t rare, isn’t hard to make, isn’t expensive and can hold more music per side than any other format, the downside being it doesn’t sound any better than the other options (which makes it a very balanced choice). Actually, Minidisc was the PERFECT medium, but that’s a story for another day…

TANK You maintain an active online presence in spite of your anonymity. How does audience response filter into your work?

DJSTTDJ It’s very important to me. If I hadn’t gotten so much popularity with Charmed I would probably have given up by now. I was going to quit after Makin’ Magick when the album wasn’t as popular after it was released, then I was going to give up after Witchkraft (the last non-bonus track on that album is “Goodnight”) and Charmed probably would have been the end if it hadn’t been for such supportive listeners and fans who managed to make the album huge long before anyone else cared. I think being anonymous but keeping active on social media is a nice balance, it kinda kills half of the mystique so people just DM me or reply to something if they want to know something about a song or whatever (and I LOVE it!).

Hex is out now.