Caught Under DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ’s Spell

DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ is one of the most interesting figures in music. She remains anonymous yet ever present, funneling her dense dance-pop into the World Wide Web’s strangest and sweetest ethers without so much as revealing one iota about her real life. For that accomplishment alone, she’s a one-in-a-million force who’s found pockets of online fame while holding on to her privacy. Since dropping Makin’ Magick in 2017, Sabrina has amassed a catalog of nearly 20 records—some that total out at over two hours in length—and more singles than you or I could fathom, all of them uploaded “from an old colonial Dutch house somewhere in 1996” by her cat named Salem. The work is the product of an artist who is not just tireless, but ambitious.

In 2022, there was talk about Sabrina’s actual identity being that of Richard D. James (aka Aphex Twin), but those rumors were quickly dispelled. She’s just a woman in London doing some of the best plundering alive, turning film samples and plastic melodies into electronic collages that are as inescapable as they are intoxicating. Over the last near-decade, Sabrina has made headway with her collaborations, writing and producing with the 1975 and remixing other musicians’ tracks (Hotline TNT, Flight Facilities), and just over a year ago she released the four-hour masterpiece Destiny, only to follow it up this August with the equally great Hex.

Hex is a mirage of magic you can’t help but love immediately. The sample-based grooves are relentlessly catchy and colorful, tapping into the obsessive electronic instrumentation that made Destiny such a contemporary pillar of dance, lo-fi house and synth-pop not just for its inventiveness, but for its accessible brilliance. I can’t think of many pop-makers who have a better command of how to produce music that is, all at once, as captivating as it is down-to-earth. If Sabrina is going to continue unloading this kind of glow at an insurmountable clip, we’re in for one hell of a lifetime.

Like many, I became engrossed in the maelstrom of DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ’s world when Destiny arrived. The way her career is intertwined with Sabrina the Teenage Witch, a show I loved dearly in my earliest cable TV years, and that she may or may not have a cat named Salem who is also her familiar, deepens the lore for a very specific niche of people. (The DJ has even gone on record before that her name is Sabrina Spellman and that she is “younger than 20” but “older than 12.”)

With Hex being so good, I felt like it was time to peek behind the curtain, so I DM’d Sabrina on Instagram and asked her if she’d be down to do an interview together. She obliged, and we caught up over email—chatting about editing, anonymity, being an “internet artist,” making Hex and more.

Paste Magazine: You’ve said before that you wanted a name that looked dumber on a club flyer than DJ Boring or DJ Seinfeld. Have you taken the DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ sound out into public spaces yet? If so, how did you approach being present like that? If not, how would you imagine you might go about taking your elusiveness into the open?

DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ: I haven’t yet taken this roadshow out into the wide open spaces, there’s been no opportunity for it. Financially and practically, it currently is not possible but who knows where the future may lead? I have a lot of ideas for performance, many concepts for audio and visual, but it would require a significant upgrade to my current popularity status before this would be attainable.

Rather than use your popularity to come out of the shadows, you’ve stuck to anonymity. Is the plan to stick with DJ Sabrina, or emerge more publicly under a different name down the road? I’m genuinely interested in what you see the future for this project becoming, if that’s something you’ve given thought to over the last few years.

I’ve stayed anonymous for three reasons: a) it works, therefore Status Quo Effect kicks in, 2) I became annoyed when all of the lo-fi house all-stars gave up their anon in exchange for a yo-ho DJ’s life for them and Γ) no-one is interested in me or my cat, it’s better this way.

I love the aesthetic that accompanies your releases: retro, femme women but digitized. Like a pixelated nostalgia, of some kind. The music doesn’t often adhere to any one legible font or style, bopping from one tone to the next. What’s influencing you outside of music? Any cultural nods you’re making in the music that’s for the real heads or the listeners who are interested in digging deep into the references?

‘80’s/‘90’s video games and their title screens, John Hughes movies (written, directed and/or produced), sitcoms (both multi-cam and single), Megg and Mogg comic books, un-developed countryside walks…

What’s the most outrageous sample you’ve pulled off in a track, and how many samples do you have running through a melody at any given time?

Vocoder cowboys are amazing! Maybe 15-30 at any given time? The songs usually have 100 tracks in the sessions…

Sample-oriented dance and pop music is some of my favorite work in the world, if only because it’s, really, a collage that’s making me feel all these types of things. I can ask a lyricist what they’re aiming for with their words, but I’d imagine it’s somewhat of a different story when it comes to sampling. You’re an anthropologist, in many ways, so what are you hoping to find when you’re cycling through other peoples’ records? How deep below the surface do you usually go?

I work as a songwriter, and that includes lyrics, I attempt to find elements that drive a piece forwards with melody or harmony/chord function, lyrical meaning, how the words work in context of the piece and tonality/timbre, how the sound of the part works in conjunction with the other parts. If I’m starting a track with a sample, the same rules apply: how will this starting sample affect other pieces that may come into the song. Often, I’ll keep ideas from things I hear around for later and other times I’ll have an idea of what I’m looking for, it depends on the track.

The first band I can remember getting me into this kind of work was the Avalanches when I was in college and Wildflower came out and changed my life. I think the Avalanches are a gateway drug into this world for a lot of people, and I’m sure you feel the same way. But what’s the next step after them? Where does the access they offer send someone curious enough to go looking?

Dilla’s Donuts is one of the obvious choices, but I’d look into Skint Records and XL Recordings’ ‘90’s output as well as a lot of indie music that has the same emotive feel as the Avalanches do. I’ve always thought of The Avs as an indie band, more so than an electronic band, they just use electronics to assemble their songs, and I think that goes for a lot of sampling music, in a way.

Something about a song like “Since I Left You” is how it’s a song anchored by a vocal sample as if it’s a brand new vocal composition. I feel that way about “Figuring It Out,” too. As an electronic artist, what are the boundaries with that? Are you ever recording vocals on your own, or inviting someone else in to do them? Or are they all found sounds?

“Figuring It Out” was a vocal part I wrote and sang and besides the dialog in the middle, there’s no samples in that track (same as The End). I definitely feel that way about SILY, the track (and indeed album) has a very uncanny feeling where it sounds alive and organic, but everything is brought back to life from the dead, like old Victorian corpus photography where they posed the deceased around as if they were still with us.

Hex is out and it’s longer than Bewitched! but shorter than Destiny. Do you think there’s another four-hour album in you, or was Destiny’s runtime more of a product of prolific circumstance?

I wanted to capitalize on the popularity of Charmed and its jaw-dropping three hours and come up with something a little longer! Since the shorter albums aren’t as well-loved or as stand-out to most, it was an attempt to cash-in on that strategy yet again, and I’m pleased to say it was a success in satisfying both my curiosity as to people’s expectations, as well as my own personal interest in the extended medium. I still need to make a five-hour album one of these days!

How much of Hex is a product of experimentation versus building out the craft you’ve already settled into? Or is the reward of this style that you never really stop tinkering with the fit of different scraps and pieces?

I never settle into anything. I’m always trying to improve and better a previous song or album, every song is an experimentation in trying a structure that has a more exciting implementation, a combination of melodies that work together tighter or an engineering sound that’s smoother, punchier, cleaner, etc. I love taking abandonware songs, snippets of forgotten movies or one-off performances and finding a permanent, forever cherished (by me, primarily) place for the sounds to live out their days.

What’s your process like from an editing perspective? How often do you spend on any given song, if you have a routine?

I work every day for at least four hours, often seven or eight (rarely less than three) and aim to get a song as close to finished as possible. Usually it takes at least three days to mix (occasionally I’ll get it mixed in a couple of sessions, then some fix up when the album sequencing is done) and it can take anywhere from three sessions to 12 sessions to get the track written and arranged. The album is finished when I feel I’m not expecting more music or I don’t feel like I’m letting the listener down if they expected more or if I start to get bored (then I’ll cull a track or two).

Hex is my favorite record of yours so far, but I’m sure your next full-length will be my new favorite project whenever it comes. Would you mind telling me what makes this album stand out to you? Does it go someplace that Destiny couldn’t? What best represents where it sent you as a musician?

Thank you! I actually thought Hex was one of the most consistent (I also try to promote Enchanted whenever I can as I feel it’s very similarly cohesive). Destiny (and Charmed, to an extent) had to be long, as was their creative intention, and the character of the long albums required the 4 hours to play the role correctly, but I’ve always enjoyed the 84-110 minute length albums for their slickness, and it’s much easier to listen to them in one go (certainly if you’re running or working to them).

I know that you began this project with no real expectations for where it would go, but now that you’ve attracted a following with it, do you feel like your music is meant to capture something in the dance or internet zeitgeist? Do you feel compelled to make some grand statement now that more people than ever are listening? Or does having a wider audience make it easier to really go wall-to-wall with the strange ideas or runtimes, knowing that you have this infrastructure in place? Or is none of it that serious, at the end of the day?

I’ve never wanted to be an “internet artist,” I’ve always wanted to just write and record pop music, but the world has such changing (and usually deteriorating) ideas about what a pop star should be. This is the vehicle I use to convey my ideas and translate my concepts for music to others in a way that is as emotionally satisfying and engaging as a listener in the age we live in currently. I’ve always been more grateful than most are for my supporters and fans as I never expect anyone to like anything I do (I usually have enough trouble being happy with what I do, so I can’t imagine others would feel very much differently).

I’ve always worked with long runtimes before anyone liked me, in fact most people hated everything I did early on, so having an audience that is positive and receptive to my music hasn’t affected that in any way whatsoever. I think I can do unusual albums and songs regardless of having a creatively tolerant fanbase, although the more outrageous tracks and albums aren’t as popular, so…

You nabbed a producer credit on the 1975’s “Happiness,” which I think is my favorite song they’ve ever released. How did that connection come about? You’re not the first anonymous producer to work with a major-level band, but I’ve always been interested in how that link happens.

And songwriting credit on that track. I sent the original demo after Matty messaged that he’d like to work with me on the album. He then worked on it and sent it back, and I sent that back with some more parts and structure and eventually it was finished. It was very fun to do and a perfect pairing as we have very, very similar ideas about pop music, which made it a very pleasant and constructive working experience.

On top of that, you worked on a remix of Hotline TNT’s “I Thought You’d Change.” Walk me through the process of re-working that song—is it a matter of giving it a DJ Sabrina makeover, or seeing how Hotline TNT’s sound and style can fit into yours, or something different? Maybe a balance of the two?

They asked if I’d like to do something with them and I offered a remix, they sent me the album with tracks I’d like to remix and I picked the track that both sounded like it would fit my sound and also I felt like I could something with (sometimes I can’t hear anything more to add to a song, and sometimes I can hear an alternative path for the piece). I like to try and make the song into something unexpected while being respectful to the original and not making it worse in any way. I think it’s probably a little of both, taking key elements and making them work in “my world” as if that was the original intention.

You’ve said before that you make the kind of music you like listening to, which I genuinely appreciate. I talked to another musician a few weeks back who said that they don’t buy into some of the labels their music has been given, because they don’t listen to that type of music themselves. Maybe that says more about the subconscious creative brain than anything else, but do you have a genre of music you enjoy listening to that wouldn’t make sense to cut up and turn into a Sabrina track? Or is nothing off-limits, even the most inverse, atypical counterparts to dance-pop?

Oh, there’s a lot of music I listen to every day that I don’t think would work as part of a “Sabrina track,” there’s even music I listen to every day that I’d enjoy making but I don’t think the world would respond well to it. I wouldn’t even be making 10+ albums if no-one else was listening, I’d have given up and found something else to do as I nearly did after Makin’ Magick 1 and Witchkraft. Enchanted and Charmed were also a little end-of-the-line for me. I don’t know how much more I could have done if they’d not had even a reasonable amount of success. I make music for myself primarily, but if no one else likes it or wants it, there’s not much point in me doing it more than once or twice, other than for the satisfaction of it, which is achieved those first couple of times. I’ll always be grateful for all of the kind people who keep giving me chances to make them happy and keep coming back. It’s humbling and an honor.

What does the idea of “curation” mean to you?

The same as taste-making does.

How is Salem doing these days?

Good! Salem has been singing on upcoming music, it’s really nice.

Matt Mitchell is Paste’s music editor, reporting from their home in Northeast Ohio.