We are at number 10 with our series and we have a mix from DJ soFa, from Brussels. As he likes to say, he is a “dj and vinyl victim” since 1997, playing all around Brussels, Belgium and Europe. He is a very eclectic dj, playing a wide range of electronic music, from dubstep to house and techno, always doing experiments. Being a versatile dj he managed, during the years, to share the stage with artists from a very diverse spectrum of electronic music, artists like Aardvarck, Actress, Ceephax, Danny Breaks, Egyptian Lover, Mike Dehnert, MLZ, Neil Landstrumm, Shackleton, Spirit Catcher, Substance & Vainqueur, Tim Exile and many others.
DJ soFa is running Lamadameaveclechien, an independent label that aims to release good and eclectic music on physical formats (vinyl and CD). The label is releasing mostly experimental stuff from friends and artists that share the same musical vision.
DJ soFa will visit Bucharest and Sibiu at the beginning of April, so listen carefully this podcast to get a glance of what you will experience during these two parties.
Please describe your podcast. How it was recorded and what should we expect from it?
Well, I think this mix turned out quite diversified. It’s mostly underground house with elements of dubtechno, dubstep, oldschool stuff and electro. It is recorded using mostly vinyl with exception of 2 tracks which I bought digitally. It has some errors, but i don’t care to much. DJing is not about technical skills in my opinion.
You’ve been djing for almost 15 years, mostly in the Belgium underground scene, you are also a vinyl lover and collector. How did you get the electronic music virus?
I have bought my first records when i was 14 and the djing came along with it. Serious bookings only started slowly from 2001 on, when i moved to Brussels and got involved more and more in the Belgian scene. I got the virus from a friend who sold his mixer and another fellow and myself got our hands on it. So we deejayed for some month using only a mixer and 2 portable CD-players trying to beatmatch CD’s without pitch control haha:) We had no money at this time for turntables but about a year later we then managed to purchase 2 old MK2 from a rental service. We got them for an incredibly cheap price as they were in very bad condition, but one of them still spins my records everyday now!
Name some of your favorite djs/producers and how did they influenced you.
Wow that’s difficult. There is so many and probably everyone and everything has an influence on oneself. Well anyways, to drop some names, early Warp and Ninja Tune have definitely had an important impact on me. In what concerns my favourite producers, I think I have to name Freeform and Mouse on Mars. They have been my all time favorites for a long period, even though I almost totally quiet enjoying “IDM” nowadays. Freeform and MOM are the only artists from which I collected the entire discography.
You are an eclectic dj and we can hear this also in your mix. You performed with very different artists like Aardvarck, Actress, Egyptian Lover, Mike Dehnert, Shackleton or Tim Exile. What is the common ground in selecting your music?
I guess the only common ground in the music I select to play is, that I must definitely like it myself. From there on there are many other criteria. I can’t describe those in a general manner for various music genres. In what concerns electronic music I definitely search for records with a personal character and often this personal character is made out of combinations from different styles and elements. But then of course when playing live, a DJ shouldn’t forget what gets those asses to shake. So yeah good grooves and deep sound are of course essential.
You are collecting records and playing mostly wax. Do you collect only electronic music vinyls? What is your most cherished vinyl?
No, I collect all kind of stuff I like. At the moment I buy mostly psychedelic music, krautrock, early electronics, techno, house and african music. I also used to collect a lot of instrumental/abstrakt hiphop, electronica, ambient and electronic dub. Since some years I buy only records which I can play out on parties. Unfortunately, as I’m not rich, I have to make restrictions and can’t buy everything I like. I also decided to sell most records which are worth much money, so I can continue to buy new ones constantly. So my most cherished has actually been sold for a lot of money. Sometimes I miss it, but then I listen to the recording I did. It was the SKAM001 – Lego Feet EP – an early moniker of Autechre.
You are running an independent label for eclectic music called Lamadameaveclechien. Please tell us something about the label.
Well, the label I’m running was initially a collective of many musicians and artists which has become a label in 2008. Since 2005 I’m running it together with a friend. We kind of booth own the label and finance it with personal means and gains from gigs we occasionally organize. It’s a hard job and a pretty fucked up business nowadays. If you want to succeed you have to be up-to-date with loads of things like internet marketing and so on. We don’t really take the time to do all this properly, all we want is to release good music we like and try to support our artists as much as we can without being full-time busy at it. It’s important to us, that the music we release has its personal character and doesn’t sound like things that have been done hundreds of times before.
Also, as our musical taste is very eclectic, we totally ignore to be a one-genre label which is equal to commercial suicide nowadays. People often want to categorize everything, especially in electronic music it’s getting pretty ridiculous what new genre names come up veryday. We want to counter this by making our catalog as eclectic as possible. It also offers the opportunity to some of our followers to discover totally diverse music from what they are used to.
What do you know about Romania?
Not to much! I’m curious to discover it soon!
The Hipodrome Of Music 
Nice one 🙂