Artist to Artist: Sebastian Voigt and Tessuto

Wilde Renate  & ELSE resident and booker Sebastian Voigt began his journey at the Lokee parties he ran whilst living in London, before he moved back to Germany to work on his own productions and the programming at Renate and ELSE. After a five yea hiatus of throwing his own parties, he is now starting a new party series, Hi-Res, which will focus on the darker sides of his tastes as well as showcasing up and coming talent.

Across the other side of the pond in Sao Paulo, DJ and promoter Tessuto is putting on his eclectic Carlos Capslock parties, which have been running for many years in warehouses around the city. Inclusive and harmonius, Tessuto often plays in full drag to a mixed crowd of queers, straights, trans, old clubbers and new gen ravers, setting it apart from other parties in the city. 

Ahead of them playing together at the first edition of Hi-Res, they give eachother a grilling on parties, promoting and the unique challenges they face in their home bases…

SV: Yo Paulo! Your party Carlos Capslock is the oldest warehouse party in Sao Paulo and one of the biggest too. How would you describe it to an outsider and what do you think makes it special?

PT: Hey Seb! I would say that the vibe and the atmosphere of respect and harmony is unique. We have a very mixed crowd with all kind of people. Queers, drags, straights, hip hoppers, old clubbers, new generation ravers, activists, trans, it's the only warehouse party you can find all these people together. What were your expectations when you came to Capslock for the first time and how did you first hear about it? 

SV: I had heard about it when I first came to Brazil to play D-Edge in 2014 i think, but didn’t have the chance to check it out then. I remember I was blown away when I went and played for the first time. It was such a good vibe, the crazy people, the great industrial venue, the level of production, everything. It reminded me a lot of the Lokee parties I used to do in London, but bigger.

PT: You used to run your own warehouse parties and have since worked as a booker for Else and Renate for years. What are the main issues that you consider when you are doing a line up at your parties to make it complete in all the ways?

SV: Mmh it’s kind of an intuitive process, since i’ve been doing this for so long. I always aim for diversity, and a good balance of established and up-and-coming artists, locals and international artists. How about your lineups for Capslock?

PT: In the past we always had only locals playing cause we had no structure to bring the big international names and also because the scene was fresh and people went mostly because of the party's reputation. But afterwards several new parties started to show up all the time and some of them had big international names since the beginning and in a way this created a vicious cycle for the crowd. Nowadays if you don't have a big name on the line up, your party has a big chance of being a bit empty. But Capslock is also always looking for the newcomers. Now we always have a good mix of big international names, newcomers and also old school names that are not that big at the moment. Let’s talk about your music. What is the best source of inspiration for you when you are producing your tracks and how do your daily tasks influence that process?

SV: A lot of things inspire me. I try not to get too influenced by other electronic music, although that’s inevitable of course. I’ve been perfecting my studio setup over the last years so now I get the initial sound that I want quite easily and in return the machines inspire me to go on from there. What works best for me is to go to the studio without any time pressure, set up an initial jam on my modular and then get in the flow. On a good day one thing leads to the next and i just go with the flow. Of course there are days when the flow is not happening at all, especially when I’m stressed out with other things. You also run a label called MEMNTGN, what are your plans with that?

PT: Me and L_cio (who runs the label with me) are totally focused on newcomers but very talented artists from Brazil and some international names. We plan to increase the number of releases in the next year and also get some bigger names to do the remixes. Our next release is from Any Mello and it will come out on 26th July, one day before the Omnidisc showcase we are going to do with Capslock. Your parties in London were notorious. Now that you are starting a new party in Berlin, do you feel that the challenges will be similar?

SV: No the challenges are very different, as the situation is a very different one. In London I used to do mainly warehouse parties where we had to put up a whole production in an empty space (like Capslock), so a lot of the energy was consumed just by that production side. Now Hi-Res is a night in an established club with a great infrastructure, so I can focus on just the music. Of course doing parties in Berlin is always a challenge because the city is so saturated. So in order to stand out you really have to make an effort, which i’m doing 🙂 I’m excited to have my own baby again, can’t wait to see where it will go. Talking about challenges: I know that Capslock and the whole warehouse party scene in Sao Paulo is facing increasing challenges, what’s the current situation?

PT: To be honest the situation is not good. I can't romanticize and say that the challenges are big but we are going well to face it because it's not true. We lost almost all the locations we used to have. All of them were shut down or rented out for other proposes. Only one is left. Besides this, the parties are getting more and more expensive to do and the economic crisis in Brazil is getting to a critical point. I always say to all the DJs: if you have the opportunity to play at a Brazilian warehouse party, please accept it, even if the fee is low, because we don't know how much longer these parties will go on for. You often come to Brazil to play at Capslock where you hold a residency, but you also played a lot in different cities many times. What do these gigs feel like in comparison to Europe? Do you think that in some way this scene is similar to the scene in Europe?

SV: I’d say in general the differences everywhere are smaller than one might expect. Of course every local scene is slightly different, favouring a slightly different flavour of music and facing different kinds of struggles, but they’re all united by a love for the same thing. I love playing in Brazil, people are usually very open and there’s a really good energy, there’s a lot of appreciation for the music. In Europe sometimes people can be a bit too cool because everything is so available. How do you experience the differences between Brazil and Europe?

PT: It Is always amazing to play in Europe. The line ups are fucking great and the structure of the clubs are always very good. Hospitality is also lovely. Everything super professional. But this is what makes me feel like the Brazilian scene is fresher than in Europe. People are discovering things that Europe discovered 15 years ago. I don't know any DJs that came to play in Brazil and weren’t amazed by our scene and how people experienced those parties.

Follow Sebastian Voigt and Tessuto. Find out more about Sebastian's new night Hi-Res at Wilde Renate.