Lost And Sound

JASSS

• Paul Hanford • Episode 185

Share episode

DJ, producer and multidisciplinery artist Silvia Jiménez Alvarez, better known as JASSS, makes work that spans raw industrial intensity, fragile emotional depth, and immersive audiovisual collaborations.

Her debut album Weightless (iDEAL, 2017) marked her as one of the most exciting new voices in electronic music, blending noise, dancefloor frequencies and experimental atmospheres. With her follow-up A World Of Service on Ostgut Ton, she expanded her vision into a full sensory world, working with visual artist Ben Kreukniet to create a touring AV show that didn’t hold back.

As her new album Eager Buyers emerges, I joined her for a chat about her beginnings in Spain, discovering metal through Soulseek, her journey through Berlin’s underground scene, how discomfort in art can provide a place of joy and the Mark Fisheresque anti-nostalgia that not only pervades her new work but feels kind of zeitgeist in these uncertain times.

Listen to JASSS – Eager Buyers
  Bandcamp

Follow JASSS on Instagram
  @jasss_inc

If you enjoy Lost and Sound and want to help keep it thriving, the best way to support is simple: subscribe, leave a rating, and write a quick review on your favourite podcast platform. It really helps others find the show. You can do that here on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen.

Huge thanks to Audio-Technica – makers of beautifully engineered audio gear and sponsors of Lost and Sound. Check them out here: Audio-Technica

Want to go deeper? Grab a copy of my book Coming To Berlin, a journey through the city’s creative underground, via Velocity Press.

And if you’re curious about Cold War-era subversion, check out my BBC documentary The Man Who Smuggled Punk Rock Across The Berlin Wall on the BBC World Service.

You can also follow me on Instagram at @paulhanford for behind-the-scenes bits, guest updates, and whatever else is bubbling up.

Speaker 1:

so what happens when industrial intensity meets dance floor catharsis? You're about to find out with my guest on the show today JASSS hello. Welcome to lost in sound, the show that goes deep, with artists shaping music and culture from the underground up. Hope, whatever you're doing, having a really lovely one. I'm, as usual, doing this little bit, coming to you from a street corner in Berlin where it's very autumnal. I love autumn, it's my favorite time of the year. I know that that's not the most popular thing to say, but there you go before we get going.

Speaker 1:

Lost and Sound is sponsored by Audio Technica. Over 60 years old and still a family-run company, they make headphones, microphones, turntables and cartridges. Their gear is grade, affordable and built on the belief that great sound should be for everyone. So wherever you are in the world, head on over to Audio-Technicacom to check out all of their range of stuff. Ok, so I don't know if you could hear it, but there's loads of crows above me. They're circling. I hope I've not done some kind of weird incantation without realising it. I better go and roll the title music.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, hello, and welcome to episode 185 of Lost in Sound. I'm Paul Hanford, I'm your host, I'm an author, broadcaster and a lecturer, and each week on the show I have conversations with artists who work outside the box about music, creativity and about how they're navigating life through their art. So, whether you're new here or you've been listening for a while, it's great to have you along. But before we get going, um, I just wanted to say rest in peace to keith mckiver who, as you most likely know, passed away last friday and who was a guest at one point on Lost in Sound, and Keith, as someone, as one half of Optimo, did most definitely nudge music culture into more interesting angles than it was beforehand. To me he was like a Wetherall or a John peele kind of figure, and I know that to many of you listening he represented something, and he did to me too. So this is just my little rip uh to Keith Mckivor, okay, um, so my guest on the show today and this is a really deep conversation you're about to hear is the producer, dj and multidisciplinary artist, sylvia jimenez alvarez, better known under the musical moniker JASSS.

Speaker 1:

Her music, particularly on her new album, sort of shimmers seamlessly between experimental soundscapes, body shaking rhythms and moments of, like, real intimacy. To me it's like, you know, when you look at your reflection, like in a pond or in a bit of water that's rippling and you can see what it is, but it's sort of distorted and it's sort of fragmented, but it still flows and it feels like one whole thing. That's that's. That's kind of what her music sounds like to me. Um, so there's a real deepness there, and sylvia was born in northern spain but now, like me, lives in berlin, and since her debut album, weightless, was released in 2017, she's released music across labels like ideal recordings Recordings and Ostgund Ton, whilst touring internationally as a DJ.

Speaker 1:

And so we talk about the headspace she was in making the new album, eager Buyers. It's sort of anti-nostalgia and a kind of malaise towards the present that I think many of us, in our own ways, feel, and to me, she really, really sort of sums something up when she's talking about it here. And we don't just talk about that. We talk about, like, the joy in discomforting music. We talk about growing up with Soul Seek. We talk about lots. Actually, it gets pretty deep. I've said deep a few times already in this intro, haven't I?

Speaker 1:

But anyway, a little bit of housekeeping before we get going. If you like the show and you haven't already, please do give it a subscribe. It really, really, really means a lot, and if you have five or ten minutes on your hand and you really fancy it, you can give the show a little review and a rating on the platform of your choice. So anyway, sylvia aka Jass, we had this conversation on 10th of September. It was the same day I actually had a conversation with the Alexander Tucker conversation you heard last week. It was a busy day for me. I really love this chat. This is what happened. So there's the producer side of what you do and then there's the DJ side of what you do as well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

How do you see them converging and are there like major DJ side of what you do as well? How do you see them converging and are there like major differences between?

Speaker 2:

them for you Between the producer and the artist, yeah, I don't know, I guess the producer is more is the arm that executes or something like that, and the artist is like active during the day. It's not there. I feel like the practice can happen anywhere in any like situation really, and it's about like what thoughts can you generate? And then the producer kind of is not even like writes them, because kind of the artist, so like that's part of the artistic practice or whatever. But I feel like the artistic practice is something very wide, that it's like an umbrella term to call a lot of different actions or thoughts or like feelings that you have. And producing is something much more on like I don't know an execution level, like it's tightening it up or like making sense of it, making it digest Is the other person that is kind of like, also like semi-busy thinking about how would other people understand it or something.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. So do you sort of feel that like the artistic side is, or like the side of an artist, without wanting to be too sort of like oh sorry, my cat is making a lot of noise, it's like that. That's just daily life, you know, just like the lens that you maybe look through, like life in a wider picture through, and then when you produce that sort of how you pull it all together.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, or at least you try it, because, to be honest, my producer aspect is not that strategic to be honest. So it's just executing what the other part says, sometimes not so aware of any other things. To be honest, so far as long as I can afford doing the music that I feel like making, that's a pretty good thing, because it doesn't define your sound in a specific way, or you don't sound exactly like someone else or like something else you sound like a mix of things, but it's like your own lens on things that to other maybe other person doesn't even recognize it in.

Speaker 2:

In generally, in my whole time making music, people have been like using terms to define my music that that's not necessarily how you experience it.

Speaker 1:

that must always always be quite weird. I mean, I think when I used to make music and also when I, when I do my writing, sometimes I kind of connect with how people describe stuff of mine, and then other times like I'm kind of like, well, I didn't see that there, but I don't mind it, but it can be, quite weird, can't it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I guess, like you try to respect other people's opinions because in the moment you put something out there, they're entitled to their opinion on it because that's that's what happens after.

Speaker 2:

But especially with the, with press in the in the past, like I have, like some certain like ebm or like industrial, like all these genres. I'm kind of like when did I play? Like I mean, I, I like that stuff don't get me wrong but like, did you hear the same thing that I heard? Even like on dj sets and stuff? It's kind of like where did you hear that? You know, like it's literally not.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes the disagreement is very big, let's put it that way I mean, I guess sometimes it's like you know you're talking about that difference between the artistic side and the production. It's like you know you're talking about the difference between the artistic side and the production side, producer side. I guess you know, maybe the artist side, like, is sort of open to things that aren't directly what we presume that we're influenced by as well. Like you know, sometimes things can just creep in.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes you don't know.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, when you go in to like record an album, particularly and I always think it's interesting to look at stuff through the frames of through the frame of an album, because it's such a contained piece of work, you know as a sort of part of someone's time as well, yeah, where they're out of that time. I mean, do you go in with like a conscious idea of something beforehand, or is it more like it kind of emerges as you're working on it?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I don't really go in and it invites me in. It's kind of like I feel like I'm always working on an album because I I feel like that's a format that I really resonate with, or I don't really know the reason, but I feel like I'm always working on an album. I'm always working on stuff that I know. Doesn't matter if, like, I am intending to work on another project or like whatever. Sometimes I just hear it and I know I'm gonna save it because that's the album I'm gonna write. So, like a part of, like something that I'm like continuously working on, and that is normally an album.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, no, it's. I mean, and when it comes to that, you know, with with eager buyers, what was the sort of root in for you with, with that, uh, with that album?

Speaker 2:

I don't know, because it all stems from such a like, I don't know, like I keep trying to give replies to that that ring true and untrue at the same time, because it's like. It's a little bit like, but I guess, just this feeling that is very extended of unknown despair, like what Mark Fisher was saying when he was saying that the future is cancelled. Basically, was it Mark Fisher?

Speaker 1:

I agree, but I'm not actually sure I've got that massive fact book on one of his anthologies, but I get into it every now and then, but it sounds definitely like something that he would say.

Speaker 2:

Or something that he would quote, some or, like you know yeah whatever the concept is or not, the concept, like the feeling, is that like is this? Something is creeping up and we all, we all see it's like right in front of our faces the whole time and yet we cannot, at least we see, we don't seem to be able to act accordingly. That's the core feeling of this, this kind of like paralysis. Also, as much, uh, information as you get from all aspects of life, like politically, philosophically, that doesn't really matter sometimes, doesn't that doesn't really matter Sometimes that doesn't actually give you the tools to act accordingly either. You're still in this paralysis.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that's something that I think resonates with, I imagine, most of us at the moment. Like you know, we're witnessing like this live stream genocide every day, you know, and not only that, but like everything else going on in the world. It is this sort of feeling of like whatever decency we sort of imagined when we were growing up that people would have like in an end of the day scenario. I don't know if everyone else felt that or you felt that, but I kind of imagined that there would be certain limits where people fall in line with just like. A greater sense of like. Humanity does seem to be very the veil, I guess, seems to be very much removed these days, but particularly in the last, and yet and yet the paralysis is still there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know. So the joke's on us kind of, you know, like the veil reveals, what does it reveal? Because I feel like it might be a mirror could you explain that a little bit more?

Speaker 2:

the mirror because what it really reveals is nothing. It's like the veal is revealed, like there's this genocide, yeah, and therefore, what? Like? I mean there's like some people that are really reacting and they're like really knowing what they're seeing and they're trying to do everything or or something you know isn't in in their hands, but there's like um majority or like a really big chunk of the people that are like, I mean, very big if we're, when we're talking about like worldwide, a lot of the chunk of the people are really preoccupied in like either being affected by those genocides, or by war, or by famine, or by scarcity, or sometimes, or by literal slavery. So it's like I cannot be talking. I mean, I'm talking about this other, more reduced part of the people that are still holding on to reality in the sense of normalcy. That negates the obvious. That is what is supposed to be behind this view that we're talking about, but they don't see anything. They just see themselves behind this you know, very eloquently put.

Speaker 1:

I mean in the press releases where you mention. And I know sometimes in press releases context gets moved around a little bit. So I apologise if this has changed, but you mentioned broken promises for a bright future. I get an idea of what you mean by that, but what does that mean to you today, for example?

Speaker 2:

It's again this concept. The future is canceled again, but from because I, because this album comes from like a seed of youth or something like that, but like I am just watching this process or something. But I still can't keep the feeling. I am recalling that feeling and embodying it in an intermittent way.

Speaker 2:

I realized how much younger me was, of course, not aware of many, many notions, and thought the world was completely different, and those dreams that for me, were so useful in order to actually do what I do today were the same dreams that were building a sense of the world that is completely false. This is what I mean of like broken dreams, because the veil, as we're saying, the veil is falling, so it's not really you have to make sense of so many things on like an ontological level, like it's really like you know that that kind of thing also, like every time I interact with like my parents, for example, like uh, my view of the world is different than their view of the world, even though they are two very informed people, but like there are some certain notions that they are really like shocked about. It's like very hard for them to believe it, for example, that some notions that we take for granted like oh no, this is not like that, is this other way.

Speaker 1:

For them it's like shocking, you know yeah, I mean, there's sort of, in a way, when you're talking about when you were younger and like perhaps this, like being a lot further behind this veil, or or like being a lot more like the stuff you didn't know, and I can relate to that. There were so many things that I didn't know when I was younger, particularly like, uh, geopolitical things. Um, yeah, I think there's this sort of sense of like the way you said it like maybe, perhaps, perhaps sort of looking back at your past, of being finding like you're implicit in it or something in in like, because that implies like a sense of like guilt on it, and it's not it's more of a.

Speaker 2:

I feel like what is very defining of these times is the sense of like insecurity.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

There's precarity, but it's the insecurity, you know, but it's the insecurity, you know. And like the, the, the good side of like things like as, like organized religions or like, uh, capitalism to be honest, as an organized religion as well is that it gives you like the certainty that there is something, there's like a, that there's a line. No, at least for some of the years, then I don't know, like you, I don't know you will have like some traumatic events in your life that will give you the aha that change your point of view. But you know, it gives you a chunk of time. If you're like in this, like low middle class, to like higher class, to like dream or understand the world in a way that is like striving for something kind of thing and this is where it's very diluted that can be a good trigger, but that's not the one I'm talking about.

Speaker 1:

Right, yeah, I think the things like capitalism and religion work in a way of like promising things that are always like a little bit out of reach, you know, like the idea of how much we want to earn is always out of reach. Aspirationalism is, by definition, something to earn is always out of reach. Aspirationalism is, by definition, something that is out of reach and that can be echoed in terms of religion, in the terms that we don't know what happens when we die. We solve this package of potential scenarios.

Speaker 2:

And yet there's part of it that is like being aspiring at something is, by definition, definition not bad. It's a good thing. It gives a sense to your life. You know, that's what I mean. It's the same device that does the whole thing, these dreams or these promises. It's not really a promise because someone has to promise that to you, but it's kind of implicit. It's like an unspoken promise or something like that that allows you to develop yourself Like I wouldn't go out of my village without it. Yeah, if you don't have the means, you have to be kind of like delusional and you're too like. Actually I'm gonna live and like or feel like secure enough. But when you don't fully understand the notion of security because you're too young or like whatever those things are really important you have to believe that anything is possible, or at least a lot of impossible things are possible.

Speaker 1:

you need to be confused about those notions yeah, and I think that that those notions of like, the possibilities of life and everything being possible are very, very tied in with youth, and I think that that's, I think, one of, maybe one of the tragedies of modern the.

Speaker 1:

The modern world we live in and the situation we find ourselves in is, is the like, the, the veil again I'm using the word um is being lifted from I, I, you know, I think the, the, the idea of youth as being, or whatever youth represents for someone's part of someone's life of being a time of possibility, like you know, like that time when we do make these huge steps forward with, like our creativity or or like aspiring to like make music or whatever we see ourselves going into, which, you know, quite often is based on like these kind of promises that you know are very, you know, unlikely, or if they are dealt to us or we managed to find them in a much smaller form than perhaps, like you know, when I was a kid I wanted to be in Led Zeppelin kind of thing, and you know, I think that's really important to preserve, in a way like this sort of, yeah, exactly, inspiration for people you know exactly exactly, exactly.

Speaker 2:

I I do think. I mean, maybe I'm just, maybe this is me, maybe all of this just represents me coming of age again and like realizing all these notions and basically realizing the importance of how to dream hard is really really important, or like because you know, this is a one directional way and otherwise doesn't like nothing makes sense really. So, yeah, I'm like I'm into that, I'm into that kind of yeah, I'm kind of into kind of like that kind of conversation.

Speaker 1:

Yeah excellent and this record comes from this kind of conversation I mean, I can feel it in it In terms of like vibe and mood, and just on that, I mean, what would you say to yourself In terms of, like, the importance of dreaming? What would you say that for you, now Are the important things to dream of?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, connection right connection is very important like truly connecting with other people and, yeah, connection is really important.

Speaker 1:

Obviously, you can see what happens when there's no connection absolutely, absolutely, on a completely different note, I mean, um, you know, you sort of mentioned about, like you know, this idea. We've been talking about this idea of the past and how it relates to now and our reflections on that now, but I wanted to go back and ask you a few questions about the past. For you, you know, like, in terms of like, how music started. For you, you know, being in a room with music on where you feel like this is something that I feel engaged with.

Speaker 2:

I feel like I don't know when it was the first time, but I feel like as long as, as far as I can remember, I had always like I felt a connection to music that was going a little bit beyond. Oh, it really helped me through a really rough time. You know, kind of I'm like hypersensitive to music. I have like a very intense stendhal syndrome with music. I feel like my father was always playing music at home, my mother as well, but not as much. And, uh, I am a single child and in some of the places where we live in the early ages I know that I didn't have many friends. So I guess I was like socializing through that. Maybe. Maybe I'm just speculating, but I feel like I think I'm just hypersensitive to it.

Speaker 1:

Can you remember any particular early things that your parents would play?

Speaker 2:

What's the name of Mike Oldfield? Has this record? Tubular Bells? No, no, no. It's not that one, it's another one that is very new, agey kind of cultural, appropriating Very much.

Speaker 1:

They always say it was a different time.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, yeah yeah, um yeah, I think my cold fill was also like a complete gateway drug. You know, like I can see the steps you could go into floyd from that and from floyd into like tangerine dream and then that, that route. Yeah, it's probably a lot of different. Um ones, what, what about for you in terms of like gateway drugs, like you know? Say, like, how, what were the sort of steps where you started to find what were the early pieces of music or artists that you sort of felt, okay, this is actually mine. You know, this isn't.

Speaker 2:

This is something I've discovered myself, you know a lot of metal, but then it was not niche at all but I I think I discovered it through soul sick folders. So that was kind of like wow, that was like insane. Like when I first got into the thing I couldn't believe, I couldn't believe I couldn't believe you could literally go into people's folders and see how they organize it and see like how many different genres kind of. Because I was like in a place in my, in my village there was like a lot of electronic music around me out of techno. Actually, the place where I live is like a lot of different villages that form like a net and there's like three small towns and there was like a lot of techno music.

Speaker 2:

There was a legend. There was like a few legendary places, clubs like La Real being the most you know known of them, and so there was a lot of that. But people were purists If you were into one thing, you were into the other thing. And when I saw the Soul Seek folders and I saw what one only person could like hold in terms of like range, I found my people. I really found my people like because I couldn't really commit to the one thing and then you would never belong yeah, yeah and because you can never dedicate that intensity to one thing.

Speaker 2:

You're just like. You know. You just divide that passion in through many little folders or like brackets, and Solstice showed me that somewhere else in I don't know, like in Ohio, there was like, probably at the time because of the genres that I was looking or that I was like searching for. It was probably like a straight dude in the middle of like.

Speaker 1:

With his cap.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah, yeah, but I love that about that. Like I think I remember myself when, like music experiences I had very formatively with people and friends. You know, like I, I was kind of a bit of a raver but I was also like a very indie kid and like I like my rock music as well and and I've definitely felt like there were certain friends that didn't really meet. You know, there was certainly I had my sort of indie experiences with certain friends but like they would turn their nose up at like the idea of like going to a field and dancing to something you know and doing, they felt like they felt like very different types of people as well.

Speaker 1:

You know, I I felt like I was 10 years older than like things like soul, seek and limewire and things like that and like quite envious in a way, of people that you know did have that were able to find that sort of connection with, like that guy in ohio.

Speaker 2:

Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean, it was. I feel like that's when my my era of discovering things for myself started.

Speaker 2:

And then, when you ask the question like, when was the first thing that you like or like, when you had this feeling of like? This is mine. I discovered this. I had the pleasure to have that a lot of times, because it was only much later that I found people that like the same thing. So for me, I discovered Aphex Twin, you know it was like. It was like oh, all these people like all the big IDM, like a lot of metal, a lot of like whatever, like Otec and all Boards of Canada. Oh, I absolutely discovered Boards of Canada.

Speaker 2:

Because nobody showed them to me, like there was nobody there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I could hear funny enough like listening to the nobody there. Yeah, I could hear funny enough like listening to the new album. I could hear a little bit of boards of canada in, like a couple of the tracks going on and um, I know I don't want to put that on you like, say, like you know, because I know that no one sits down and goes, I want to basically make a boards of canada. I mean, some people might do, but you know what I mean a lot of people do do.

Speaker 2:

The internet is a lot of replicas of Words of Canada. I'm not mad about it.

Speaker 1:

No, but actually that's an interesting side question Were there ever points where you thought Because also earlier on you did mention about the kind of work you do and being in the position to make work that has a sense of like artisticness and it's in that it's its own thing were there ever points where you maybe considered going down a different route with music, like maybe being more of like a kind of you know uh, I don't want to diss anyone like I don't mean it like that, but like maybe more of someone who just makes this. I just want to make something that sounds like Boards of Canada. You know, that's what I want to do.

Speaker 2:

And I did that privately yeah.

Speaker 2:

I mean I'm not going to pursue that as like a career path or like I'm not going to release a music. That is like. Those are exercises that you do to try to understand how might or might not have that some certain sound being done. It's an interesting thing. I mean now you can just like look up any YouTube tutorial but, like in the beginning, you wanted to find the thing that made the sound of the pads as close as possible, because you wanted to replicate that warm feeling, for example, and you didn't have the money to buy their gear.

Speaker 1:

So you needed to replicate that warm feeling, for example, and you didn't have the money to buy their gear, so you needed to like, you know that's really interesting, and when I'm speaking to andy bell last year he was talking about how he learned to make music in a similar way, like he would get a beatle song and he'd play it, and play it, and play it until it started to become something else. Um, I've always loved the idea that if I say the same word over and over again, it stops losing its meaning.

Speaker 1:

It starts to, in my head, mean something else or starts to become like some weird synesthesic shape, and was there a point for you like where you sort of felt like your music was starting to find like an identity?

Speaker 2:

that that is what you do now I think, uh, I think, in my case it was very subliminal more than studying it, because I'm not a consistent person and and I like I I lack, uh, steadiness on my practice, but in any form, like I can't. It's hard ADHD and it's like it was more subliminal, like things that I was very passionate about and possibly, like I mean I don't want to give help me through really hard times, but like, but like, really like moments of vulnerability that I shared with a specific, like general, like moments of strength, like a special strength that I needed to take out of from a particular type of sound, because sometimes it's not even the band, sometimes it's like a sound in a certain moment of the song that you want this, you need that dopamine.

Speaker 2:

For some reason I feel like I I can trace those uh in in no, I don't know in my music, I guess in my music when I listen back to it, but I need a little bit of time to listen back to it. But I definitely I feel it in my intention more. I sometimes know that I'm doing the thing but it's never the thing.

Speaker 1:

It's not that all that sounds like it's not, this feels like this other thing, you know, but it's my own, it's more like more my own memory of it in an abstract way, not necessarily the sound itself and does that memory also incorporate perhaps, elements like maybe there's a thing that you're trying to get out of or explore in a piece of music and it might be connected to something when you you associate with the music that's outside of the music?

Speaker 1:

yeah, exactly, exactly yeah, I can definitely relate to that as well, like sort of like it could. For me when I was making music it could be like the first cigarette of autumn or something you know, and hearing something once, yeah, yeah, when that was going on. Yeah, I love how that feeds and it sort of just becomes this big stew and there's the magic that's the magic.

Speaker 2:

That's exactly the magic, yeah definitely, definitely.

Speaker 1:

And like when, when it came to making a first album like Weightless, what do you remember about that era, that sort of time for you, like where were you and was there anything that you were sort of you would feel like you were like going through at the time or like and I had a big breakup and then I had another relationship that was very different and it's almost like two very different eras that to me, they're marking time by that breakup and these two different relationships, but in a sense, I was a complete different person in both.

Speaker 2:

Basically, that's why I marked them, not because I mean, I guess, because of the influence of these two people, but like it's more like being like being aware that you are a different person because of like your decisions impacted you and like whatever, and I remember it as being very capable of inhabiting those pieces of music, very capable.

Speaker 2:

I still had a naivety that I don't have now and, yeah, I was definitely looking at the world and at sound. You know I was romanticizing different things than now and it's almost nostalgic, not really like, not not fully, but I I remember it as a, as a good time, actually like as a um, I'm more precarious in a way time in my life particularly, but in a really happy time I was exploring berlin in a different way. I was still exploring Berlin. It was like in my first couple of years or something like that, that I was or no, no, no, no, I was already in Berlin for some years, but I was still in this like honeymoon, which lasted a chunk of years with me in the city. I feel like I've lived multiple times in this city, multiple lives and I can relate to that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah in that era was a really open or something. I met a lot of different people that became really important in my life.

Speaker 1:

During that time, you know, I was like dreaming about something that then, with the album also marking another like stone milestone, you call it yeah, it became like some other time of my life, you know yeah, so the album I think it was in 2017 it came out something like this yeah, right, yeah, because I I that was just when I was moving to berlin around then and and I mean I think it probably for any city, but I think with berlin I feel like it's a city that people come to with some, or at least people that come with, like a kind of a creative impulse or a cultural impulse for the city.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, those were the times, for sure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, really really good times. I feel like it's it was a sort of city where I don't know, I don't know what. I'd be interested to speak to someone who's just moved here with the same intentions to see how that measures up really, you know, because I know that I was very idealistic about things like the freedoms and and this kind of myth like quality to to it, really that now it's just I love it, but it's, it's a, you know, it's just we live, don't we, we, we, we we're a different person every every day.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I feel like for me personally, general wise, or like mood wise, that era was a really good moment.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah it was.

Speaker 2:

I remember it as a really good moment for music and I know that in that is that is true because I go back and look at the records. I am still playing records from that time and the records I discover from like 2005 to 2012 in that moment and they are still amazing, like they're still killer. So I feel like a lot of music was written around there that almost felt like the last little bit of the new genres. You know that that was the last moment of something new or something.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, no, I definitely relate to that, I think, because before then I was living in East London and I felt like a similar vibe there, you know. There was a lot of cross-pollination and a lot of people trying stuff out like perhaps with like really accepted genres like house and techno and and but like doing things with it that maybe, maybe, again, maybe it was like what we're talking about. Earlier on that I was approaching it myself with a sense of naivety and and, yeah, optimism that, like other people could go and actually pull. Come on, that's actually, you know, julio bashmore's actually just ripping everything off from frank frankie knuckles and I didn't know that then you know.

Speaker 2:

But, um, and also like the cross-pollination point that you made, that it was a moment where kind of like dubstep was mixing with so many genres and was making, like you know, like the syncopated rhythms everywhere, like really like the textural percussions, like the good sounding crisp and also the new, like more sound designing stuff was like getting really established and like it was like a mix of a lot of like different genres that were really the brain dance, like the, you know, like all this, like it was very, it was inviting for the challenge you know, yeah, I love the way that's a really good way of putting it, inviting for the challenge.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and how do you see that gauntlet now? Because your dj sets are, you know, they're consistent but they're eclectic, you know, and how do you relate to that challenge, like in 2025?

Speaker 2:

it really depends on the gig right like I just played dry mullen now with uh for the, the guys of um time dance and uh in this amazing. I don't remember how the sound system was called, but I remember that he mentioned that they brought it from Bristol and I was playing back-to-back with Dina Abdel-Wahid and that was really nice. That was really like. The sound was really good. The sound was really good and the people were so like the crowd was really good. The sound was really good and the people were so like. The crowd was so generous. You know, I mean everywhere in remol and I'm just talking about my, my particular experience yeah, it's a it's very, very up for not anything, but up for it.

Speaker 2:

You know, like you can go places. They want you to go places, they don't you know, and then you feel completely free and then the way you browse through your files is really like you're looking for something else than what can set this on fire, which also, but like it's kind of like more like, oh, you don't know about this other one.

Speaker 2:

You're in dialogue with people, yeah and it becomes also like a little bit of more of an ox cable at the chill or at the after party kind of situation, because you know they are going to get it Like, oh I have this other one that it does this other thing, kind of, and that is pretty rare. To be honest, I have to say that I think in part I am able to do what I do, like I am able to play dj professionally because I was doing that, specifically because I was doing that, and I feel like the expectation from promoters and like party goers as well, has increasingly become give me something I can recognize, yeah, and I mean that speaks of the nature of like the state of the of parties itself is give me comfort. I understand that, I get it, I get it. It's give me comfort or give me the thing I paid for, which. That I am kind of. Then I might not. You know, maybe I'm acting up then.

Speaker 1:

Okay, what would you do when you, what have you done when you've acted up?

Speaker 2:

Have there been any situations where you just felt like, okay, look, I'm just going to have to just say something here, or like this is enough, no, no, I'm not acting up in this way, it's more acting up in that, in like kind of like maybe I'm, maybe I'm going to go extra difficult then, which is not I don't, I don't take this. I mean, it's my job. I don't, I don't really I'm not out there taking revenge on the people, you know, but like, sometimes you have like really bratty bros standing in front of you looking looking at you, looking at your hands with their drinks and their mates and being like punishing you. You know, basically visually, throughout the entire thing, you can find that. I mean, it's not that you couldn't find that in the past, because there would be the chin scratchers were always there. But this is not even chin scratcher, this is like some people that just got off job and it's kind of like they could easily be in any other like very, very commercial place, you know yeah, I mean we've all got used to basically having whatever restaurant food we want like delivered to us, you know, and it's that sort of idea of like, um, yeah, expecting something, you know yeah, you're here to provide for a service that I paid for

Speaker 2:

yeah, I mean you and this other, like 800 people, but you know whatever, like they feel entitled to express that they were.

Speaker 1:

They were expecting something else you know, for an artist like yourself who has said in the past, that you do sometimes like there is a side of you inside of what you do that does enjoy digging into discomfort, um, like particularly there was a quote about like the performance you gave at ctm in 2020, where you talk about like you, you make people feel uncomfortable on purpose. Sometimes. I mean for you, what is the point? What point, what is your reason for doing that, when you feel the need to do that?

Speaker 2:

I guess what I was talking about is not coming from a sadistic place of enjoying the other people feeling uncomfortable. It's more of a I don't know, unless you have this sadistic intention with it. I feel like if you make someone uncomfortable, you're also making yourself uncomfortable, and that's a pretty good, interesting way of experiencing a moment. I'm not saying I'm going to consistently put you through and myself through two hours of discomfort. I'm just saying that the contrast is bigger if I challenge you a lot than if I challenge you a little, than if I challenge you a little. And I am assuming that I was talking about that and also like not really necessarily being this cheerful you know what I mean like I was like talking about this recently to someone else as well that I feel like partying is a really good practice. It, it's a ritual, it's a. You know that's what it is. But exclusively making it about it's not even joy, because joy should be the thing you know. Or communion, again, connection, this kind of thing. You can be also dancing your fears away. The queers know this, we know the thing, we know how you use all this discomfort and you like, I don't know it doesn't have to come from happiness. You know it's a transformation. The interesting point is that you're transforming it, that you're able to literally do some kind of alchemy there and go from A to B, at least momentaneously.

Speaker 2:

Relief Sometimes you need it, you know, but not release. It's escapism, but it's also something more profound. Your mind changes if you're able to have a break or not. It's a completely different mind. If you give people a break, they will maybe have a little bit more positive take or a different take, or maybe they stopped taking some shit that they were taking afterwards, but realizing things that might change your perspective in something Besides, it's a lot of people dancing together. That already is overwhelming. That has a power in itself, you know. So, yeah, no, would you ask me no, no, it's brilliant that's a brilliant way of describing it.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I think that's something that metalheads have always known as well. I mean, I I take an interpretation of what you're saying. I can't speak for the lived experiences of, like, everyone on the planet, you know, yeah, but I think I think for myself, I think, uh, this sort of idea of digging into discomfort sometimes, yeah, the difference between sadistic, I guess, and and sharing a transformative moment, or or trying to share, you know that you're being part of yourself is is the difference between something that comes from the ego and something that comes from, like, like you saying, joy. Basically, the difference between ego and joy, maybe.

Speaker 2:

I mean the question is like, how much do you want out of an experience? Because this is not only for the context of like dance music actually, maybe, especially not, uh, maybe it comes from noise music and that's the discomfort I was talking about, and that's like you. You are like either enduring the show, which also is a pretty good opportunity to reflect on things, or, like you know, I don't know. I feel like a lot comes from discomfort, because there's many types of discomfort that can come out of sound.

Speaker 1:

Can you imagine yourself in the future doing work that perhaps digs more into that, maybe, or maybe even like work that, like exclusively um, explores this?

Speaker 2:

I don't know, I I would like to. To be honest, I mean, I feel like one of my favorite and most listened people in my life is actually last mort I don't know, I don't know I don't know.

Speaker 2:

Lassmord is this guy that is from the UK, I think, and does dark ambient. He's really thick. I love his music so much he used to be in SPK, I believe and he does this really really thick ambient that I bet so many people would find discomfort in it. And for me it's like my happy place, again, not because of the darkness I'm so dark, I'm so into the. It's because what I'm looking for. It gives me exactly what I'm looking for in this experience. You know, I mean there's also a lot of people that find dark, I mean comforting. There's a whole. You can go on Reddit and immerse yourself in lots of talks about that, but I guess that's an artist that gives me exactly what I want out of this comfort. Because of this, starting with this comfort and then not, and then back and then not, I feel like music is always attached to a lived or non-lived or living experience. So that's why this comfort discomfort, it's just the trigger.

Speaker 1:

You know, yeah, yeah, and it operates on perhaps on like a very feel-based level, um, that sort of bypasses intellectualism, or even yeah, yeah, um, yeah. So, sylvia, thank you so much for chatting with me, just sort of rounding it up a little bit. But like, I mean, I always like to ask guests, like you know, if you could go back. I mean, this is kind of interesting because we've already sort of answered this in a way, which is unusual. But you know, if you could go back, terminator style to yourself, when you were like, maybe at the point of you were still like making, secretly making boards of canada stuff, um, yeah what would you tell yourself?

Speaker 2:

what do you terminate the stuff in? In which sense?

Speaker 1:

sarah connor. Yeah, like an advice?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I don't, it's fine, I'm trying to find another answer to this, because I just answered this, so I'm trying to find. I'm trying to find another thing that I would tell myself.

Speaker 1:

No worries, is it? I realize we have been digging into this question anyway, so gain is important.

Speaker 2:

Adjust the gains more in a technical level. Don't borrow that roland synthesizer to that guy that you think is going to give it back to you. What else? Because what I said I gave another interview and I was saying, which is really, really true save everything, make copies of everything, of different hard drives. The naivety that you have right now is really important and you will want to revisit it, because I can't. That's why, like, I can't hear what I made, because I lost it. So maybe I just give that reply again because it's truly, it's truly the big advice save everything, make copies of that. Save, like, don't trust one hard drive, especially not the ones that are not SSDs, and you want to be able to access what you cannot access anymore.

Speaker 1:

That is such a good answer. I have hard drives with really important stuff on. I don't know where they are anymore. They have, you know, we have every few years. Our technology just changes, doesn't it? And and like, and also the internet is just so unreliable for archiving. So I think that's that's such a good good one. All right, sylvia, thank you so much for chatting with me.

Speaker 1:

I'm so glad okay, so that was me, paul hamford, talking with sylvia jimenez alvarez, aka jazz, and we had that conversation on september, the 10th 2025. Thank you so much, silvia, for sharing your time and thoughts with me there. The new jazz album, eager buyers is out now on her own awos imprint label. I'm not sure if I pronounced that properly, it's awos. My apologies if I've if I've not pronounced that correctly.

Speaker 1:

If you like the show and you haven't already, please do give it a subscribe, give it a review and a rating on a platform of your choice. It really, really does help. And if you like what I do and you want to hear a little bit more of what I do and you have not done so already, you can listen to my radio documentary the man who smuggled punk rock across the Berlin wall by heading on over to the BBC sounds app or on the BBC world service home page. Lost and sound is sponsored by Audio Technica, the global but family-run company that make headphones, turntables, cartridges and microphones. They make studio quality yet affordable products because they believe that high quality audio should be accessible to all. The music that you hear at the beginning, at the end of every episode of lost and sound is by tom giddens, hyperlink in the podcast description. And so yeah, that's it. I hope, whatever you're doing today, you're having a really lovely one and I'll chat to you soon, thank you.