For guest mix #91 we travel to Sweden and meet up with the Sun Citadel (Soundcloud | Insta) crew. Established in 2019, the crew organises parties around Stockholm. Let's dive in and get to know DJ Samira Ari, DJ Lisa T, DJ Manú Festo & DJ Kugg better.
Hello SCDC, thanks for taking the time to make a mix for DR! Can you introduce yourself briefly?
We are four friends from Stockholm Sweden. Musically, we explore house in its different forms but also capture what we feel is the best of breakbeat, combined with electro, progressive house, trance and much more. We create a mystic feel in our parties, using fabrics and liquid lights deco.
What’s keeping you busy currently?
Currently we’re exploring new venues, routines for hosting our own parties in general, and doing it responsibly during this pandemic in particular. We’re also boosting and switching our deco materials, doing tie dye workshops, creating our own new visuals and inviting other artists.
These past 6 months, we’ve also been talking about how to reshape the dance culture in Stockholm. Stockholm has had a living dance scene since the summer, in contrast to most other countries. We have an opportunity to turn our discussions about responsibility within the culture into practice.
People need to meet and dance, but a lot of people are now without the normal safety nets they had before the pandemic. Combined with a dance scene where people get hurt in different ways during parties, we feel the need to plan and intervene better. We want to open up for participation without creating spaces which are destructive for anyone.
What drove you to electronic music and DJ’ing, and how did you get started?
We have roots in various musical styles and sounds and have been inspired by jungle, disco and deep house.
When we got together in the beginning of 2019, we had a common desire to create an organic dance club in Stockholm. We managed to do a monthly at a small venue in southern Stockholm city, gathering friends and friends of friends in a cosy and intimate environment.
Our graphical aesthetics centers around three symbols, the bottle, the planet and the palm tree. The palm tree symbolises the cosmic/balearic sound and its soft touches on natural instruments. The planet symbolises the mind-heightening psychedelic sound. While the bottle represents the realness of the streets, breakbeat music and earth shaking baselines. Purity 0 % (as, not only the tune, but as in playing very eclectic and mixed music) is rooted in our core.
What was the first record or a song that made a lasting impression on you?
Shafty - Deep Inside (Of You) (Soul Trance Mix)
Can you tell us about your debut as a DJ collective?
We came 5 hours before opening, with our bags full of fabrics, and a great deal of anticipation. A lot of people felt a complete transformation of the venue, which has hosted a lot of debuts of indie, reggae and other sound systems throughout the years.
The DJ booth was super small and we did a switch between the DJ controller and vinyl players as they were playing. The limiter was aggressive and as we were rigging down a friend accidentally cut the cable to the security camera, haha. But we had a blast and were in love with our new club.
Let’s talk about Stockholm. There’s always been a steady stream of quality electronic music coming from the city. What makes the scene so fertile there?
Stockholm is a geographically distributed city with lots of forests. The 90s scene was badly hurt in the early 00s in what we call the “rave prohibition era”. Raves moved from warehouses to forest patches over summer. This was a politically tense period where police did crackdowns on any attempt to meet around electronic music.
The transformative prohibition years for Sweden's dance organisers made us only more self-sufficient and stronger. Today the scene is growing with more labels, producers and venues than ever. The scene is mostly underground due to remaining legal limitations for dance permits.
For us the dance scene since 2016 has been a fantastic journey. The sounds have improved a lot, the amount of cultural peers have increased dramatically.
Can you name a few local acts that you follow closely?
We’d like to mention (in no order whatsoever) Skogshuset, Relief Sessions, Glänta, Bon Chance, Love Potion, Clap Clap Club, Born Free Records, Bella Sarris, Psychedelic Dolphins, Arkipelan, Botanica, Acid Eagle, Jin Mustafa, Ibne collective, Mmmmm, Miniteka, TekNoTajm, Discomagiskt, Kizaa Zaa, Pangea, Lighthouse, Gården, Mål 2, Faggotry and Hägring.
Name 4 tracks or releases that’s currently on heavy rotation at Sun Citadel HQ?
Lisa T: Fingers Project - Give Me A Wink (Thursday's Club's Orlando Boom Mix). Slick and sassy, yet rowdy acid breakbeat
Kugg: Komartsov - Up vertically, trancy electro from Ukraine
Samira: AES - WAYD, heavy bass lines, groovy breakbeats and spacy electro from Paris
Manú Festo: Sally C - Turn that, raw, punchy and percussive with sampled vocals and sirens
So the mix, can you tell us a little something about that?
We spent a lot of time coordinating and trying to harmonize our sound for this one. We tend to host a listening session a month and one party a month. We switched towards more listening during the covid lockdown period and tried to use that isolation for discovering the essence of our sound.
The journey inwards has also led us to favor new/futuristic music with heavy influences of 90’s jungle, trance and deep house. This mix contains only contemporary tunes, we think that the present is the best time for our music.
Many thanks Sun Citadel, anything else?
All conscious and authentically underground clubs out there, all free party organisers, everyone lifting heavy speakers, working for many hours to make a great party: We are glad to be part of this scene with you! Thanks DR for having us and stay safe!
playlist
Kugg:
01. Cable toy - boden
02. Breaka feat adam pits - the show must go on
02. Dj Life - Peia
04.Ponty Mython - Barroco
Manú Festo:
08. Eclectics - Contento de saber (Joe Morris remix)
07. Denny Pally - Withering heights
08. Massimiliano Pagliara - Sunset funk
09. Bleak - Cando
Lisa T:
10. Roza Terenzi - Total Eclipse
11. Gacha Bakradze - Eyespace
12. Kim Ann Foxman - Blood Moon (Roza Terenzi's Eclipse Mix)
13. Kitjen - Juno's Revenge (Igor Tipura Remix)
Samira:
14. Solär Sound System - Reveille Toi
15. Francesca - Tao
16. D.K. - Storm of Steel
17. P.O. - Slomany
DJ profile
Sun Citadel
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Website | Soundcloud
Stockholm based DJs, Sun Citadel Dance Club
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