“As a label head I want to be very intentional about what gets released on the label, but I also don’t want to micromanage – ultimately producers should keep their agency” says artist Katiusha of her new label, GRACE. Born from her diverse experiences within club culture, she launched the label earlier this year with two personally significant tracks, that she tell us helped shape both its sustainable vision for the future and her own ever-growing sound. Both ‘The Sellout’ and ‘A Shark Called Nancy’ revealed a deepening maturity to her productions with the EP conjuring a sultry, hazy space for dancers to lose themselves in. The latter, at nine minutes long, created a sense of time luxuriously extended. With previous tracks on Chris Farrell’s Devil’s Work and Shanti Celeste’s & Gramrcy’s Peach Discs, there’s a clear intent in improving and refining her craft as a producer.
The follow up record on GRACE, releasing next week from another currently Berlin-based alumni Keplrr, extends the label’s vision for mind-blurring techno flavours. A mesmerising two-tracker that fans of Donato Dozzy, Konduku and Wata Igarashi should be all over. We caught up with Katiusha to chat about her formative Cashmere Radio shows, early music friendships, her journey into production and some of her fondest club memories of recent years. Her Truancy Volume, a 90-minute ride of chaotic basslines, off-kilter workouts and percussive pressure is a real power-move from start to finish. There’s a video on Intsagram of her playing a wild Timbaland edit at Floorfest and she one-ups that here with both an Aaliyah and Britney edit thrown in for all your curve-ball needs.
Hey there! Thanks for answering some questions for us! So how have you been recently? What’s the year been like for you so far? Any particular highlights? “Heyy, thanks for having me. Music-wise this year has been interesting. After a chunk of time focusing on production I’m back doing regular DJ things as well as my new label, GRACE. My favourite gig so far was prob the b2b I did with Breaka and Dubrunner at Fusion festival – total sweatbox, insanely fun. I’ve really enjoyed working with more people and going to new places.”
So as it’s your first time getting interviewed on the site, I thought we’d go back for a minute. I know you’re currently based in Berlin, but you were born in London correct? Can you tell us a little bit about your early formative musical years? I read that your parents are classical musicians? “Yes on both counts. I don’t take those classical roots for granted at all, because that’s a strong foundation to have, but I also knew quite early on that that world wasn’t for me. I struggled to listen to music where you had to sit still. My parents played lots of dope non-classical stuff though, which I love to this day, things like Stevie Wonder, Alanis Morrisette and Eminem’s Marshall Mathers LP. (Actually that last one was an unintended find from my stepdad’s CD case. I think someone else gave it to him and he’d forgotten about owning it, so he was really surprised to one day learn me and my 7 year old sister randomly knew all the words to ‘Steve Berman’ and ‘Bitch Please II’.)”
Massive Attack were quite influential to you no? I’ve seen them pop up in a number of your mixes and I think we first connected when you asked what the Massive Attack remix in one of my mixes was. Do you have a favourite album/track by them? “Mezzanine, Protection and 100th Window are my faves, though Mezzanine probs runs deepest. I remember hearing it pretty young and feeling weirded out, but also intrigued. Like what is a nine year old gonna do with ‘Inertia Creeps’? But then the song evolves. In August I saw them live in Bristol, which was a real vintage moment. Picking a favourite is honestly like Sophie’s choice – ‘Girl I Love You’, ‘Black Milk’ and ‘Group Four’ are up there.”
Was it quite easy to get into dance music growing up in London? Was there a first dance music experience that really stuck with you that you feel kind of set things in motion for you as a DJ and producer or did that come a bit later? “I did have a few London punts when I was a teenager, like Corsica, Brixton Jamm, an early System:Sound event in King’s Cross… some questionably chosen festivals… but the whole thing really got going in Berlin.”
You’ve talked about in past interviews about meeting people such as Chris Barrance, Ruairi Mangan, Alex T, Sam Jefferies and Adam Pits whilst at university. There’s an absolute encyclopedia of musical knowledge there that must have been super influential too. Was it just a group chat of constant record digs and finds? “For sure there was a lot of music shared. My favourite thing was just mixing together, I was a bit allergic to nerdy digging culture at the start because it felt quite laddy. I preferred just playing and having the metadata wash over me, and I was lucky that those boys never made me feel bad about that. Now I’m reformed! And I’ll always trace certain records back to specific friends – especially Alex. But the main thing I learned from these lot were the core values of the scene. They’re extremely kind-hearted people who go out of their way to support others.”
How did you go about learning to mix?When I first moved to Berlin in 2013 I didn’t know anyone except a guy called James who I knew a bit from London and happened to be there at the same time – he taught me how to mix on a friend’s vinyl set up in the first week. I ended up living at that person’s gaff, so it just continued from there, me practising with his record collection. He had a jazzy little Ecler mixer that I loved as well.”
Can you tell us a little bit about your move to Berlin? I’ve never lived in Berlin but I imagine it’s just very easy to find yourself bumping into lots of fellow DJs and making friends. Was that what your first couple of years were like? Do you remember what your first party you played at was too? “I was 18 and totally clueless when I first moved. I learned German at school so I thought, ‘I’ll try living in Germany’. Literally this logic… At the time I was into singing, so I packed up my lil knapsack and my lil guitar and took a bus to Berlin where I worked a bunch of truly abysmal jobs, then switched to busking for six months.
In the meantime, a group of late-20/early-30 year old Germans took me under their wing. They were mad as a box of frogs, I didn’t fully understand what they were saying most of the time, but I spent every weekend with them bouncing around these ratchet minimal parties and forgetting to sleep. I was broke and a total fool. Fell in love with DJing and dancing though. The second time I moved to Berlin I was a bit more sensible haha.”
Were your Cashmere Radio shows quite formative in the way you put together music and explored themes as well? Saw you did 25 shows with a host of guests which included Happa, Jabes, slowfoam, CCL and A Psychic Yes. “For sure. When I was coming up with ideas for the show, Giacomo from Cashmere was like ‘you can’t just play club music, that’s boring.’ He encouraged me to think outside the box and conceptualise something personal – I’d been playing in a very techno-energy-focused way before then, so the Above The Clouds show got me thinking more laterally about music, soundscapes, and curation.”
Can you tell us about the first year when you started learning how to produce and what the influences might have been? Did you grab the hang of it pretty quickly or has it been a slower process? “God it couldn’t have been more slow. I think I noodled around on Logic for about five minutes before giving up – remember not being able to work out how to make a pitch bend, which seemed like such a pathetic battle to be losing. I was like ‘right, in the bin.’ Never occurred to me to look up a tutorial. Years later I got a crack of Ableton – paid for now I swear – a friend was like ‘let me come round and show you some stuff.’ Bless his nerdy soul, he went straight in trying to explain how to make drums from scratch using white noise in operator, I felt like my brain was being fed through one of those play-doh machines. It took me a few years of microdosing basics, getting a less draining job, and the pandemic hitting before I had the time and confidence to start writing. My advice to anyone starting out now is to ask for help, and if it’s not working, get help somewhere else. I would’ve started producing much earlier if I hadn’t been so insular.”
Can you tell us a bit about putting out your first few tracks? You had a release on Chris Farrell’s Devil’s Work label as well an appearance on Shanti Celeste and Gramrcy’s Peach Discs compilation. I imagine these would have been great confidence boosters in making more music. “For sure! Both Graeme and Chris were very supportive, I felt like I had a lot of free reign to do what I wanted, and very lucky to have an early platform on good labels.”
So six months ago you started your label GRACE with two tracks, The Sellout and A Shark Called Nancy. Can you tell us a little bit about making these? Any new production techniques explored? Was the idea to always produce something you could put out yourself too? “To be honest I never pictured releasing my own stuff – I get why people do it, but it didn’t appeal to me personally. In the end I went down that route because I had this unused material and also didn’t want someone else’s music to be the first pancake for GRACE. But accidentally my EP became very meaningful in shaping the vision for the label, and my own sound. It felt like the first one where I had something to say sonically, and those tracks reached a strange place I don’t think I got to on my earlier tracks.”
You’ve got the second release on your label coming out next month from Keplrr. Can you tell us a little bit about putting this one out? What sort of label head do you want to be as well? “I love Isaac’s sound, and was so happy to get his music on the label. He’s got this sound that’s psychedelic, deep and technical but also tinged with UK, which is 100% my vibe. The music side was obviously easier this time, cause I wasn’t tearing my hair out doing my own mixdowns, and Isaac is a skilled dude. The artwork was a challenge though. I wanted to design something more pro than I did for my own EP, but it took weeks of trial and error to get there – lots of paint, lots of drawings, lots of ‘why tf did I do this to myself, I should’ve just hired someone’.
As a label head I want to be very intentional about what gets released on GRACE, but I also don’t want to micromanage – ultimately producers should keep their agency, I don’t want to make them into something they’re not. I think there’s more synchronicity in that approach. And I want the label to be equitable – so the producers get paid up front.”
What are some of your fondest musical memories from recent years? Are there any particular festivals, parties, or experiences you would recommend to others? “Some of the parties that spring to mind are Climate of Fear, Buttons, Lecken, Everything is True, Fever AM, African Acid is the Future, REEF, Freerotation. For me the crowd is key. My ultimate recommendation is finding good people to party with and knowing your recreational limits extremely well.”
How does music fit into your daily routine? Do you regularly listen to music or search for new records? How do you focus your intentions and craft, and how distinct are your roles as a producer, DJ, label owner and music enthusiast? “I used to listen to music 24/7, anxiously thinking ‘how am I gonna find all the good music if I’m not listening to music all the time!’. Now that I have more music projects, I have way more periods of extended silence otherwise my ears just glaze over. I also try to spend less time impulsively wolfing down new music and more time getting to know the music I’ve already copped. I don’t want a library full of random tracks I can’t mix instinctively, or don’t feel a closeness with. In terms of balancing all the different roles – I’m still figuring that one out. Of course there’s overlap but when I have the opportunity to really sink into one mode, I take it.”
Can you tell us about three albums that a) define you getting into electronic music in general, b) maybe a midway album when you were fully invested in DJing and and c) a recent one from the last couple years?
Röyksopp – Melody AM
Fast Floor – Plight of the Innovators
Soul Oddity – Tone Capsule
What sort of other hobbies or interests do you have outside of electronic music? Are there any books, films, shows or other things you’ve seen or been reading/watching that you might want to share? “Drawing has always been a big love of mine, I just never knew how to be an art person so I didn’t become one… I’m really happy to be able to bring illustration back into my life via the label artwork. I like writing too. Watching clouds. The film Bend It Like Beckham (excellent). Researching a strange medical condition where people can’t burp. I’ve been obsessed with lots of things over the years – it’s actually a miracle I’ve managed to focus on DJing this long.”
Could you describe the process of creating this mix? Was there a specific message or feeling you wanted to convey? “I adored recording this! I think it’s the most I’ve vibed doing a podcast mix. I didn’t think about it too hard and played what I wanted – easier said than done. It felt like a showcase of the deep power places I want to go, as well as these fluid groovy segments and a few GRACE tracks sprinkled in. I like when you record a mix and learn something about your own taste listening back to it. Got a lot of vocals serving in this one, and a fair bit of gurgly purring bass bits.”
Last, usual question from us, what was the last thing to put a big smile on your face and when was the last time you had a proper dance? “Last big smile – stumbling on a lock-in that me and my friends could get a nightcap in after my Berlin gig last weekend. Very strange little situation, felt like I was in Narnia but with schnapps. Last proper dance – Pariah’s set at Klubnacht two weekends ago.”
Katiusha: Soundcloud, Instagram, Bandcamp, Resident Advisor
Grace: Soundcloud, Bandcamp
You can download Truancy Volume 337: Katiusha in 320 kbps and view the full tracklist on Patreon here. Your support helps cover all our costs and allows Truants to continue running as a non-profit and ad-free platform. Members will receive exclusive access to mixes and tracklists. We urge you to support the future of independent music journalism — a little goes a long way. If you need any IDs though, please leave us a comment on the Soundcloud link and us or Katiusha will get back to you with the track :)
