A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege to sit down and have a chat with Toby, founder of the great indie label Svetlana Industries, home of awesome artists such as 1000names, 8Bitch, Filtercutter, Teebs & Jackhigh, Piece of Shh… and many more. He cooked up an amazing guest mix for the 17th edition of my Little Miss Sunshiine show, and this is what we talked about:

Orsii: So, for those who do not know, what is Svetlana Industries?
Svetlana Industries: It’s a record label based in Belgrade, Serbia. We also organise parties, make radio shows, play gigs, that sort of thing. We’ve put out two records since the start of the year and another one is on the way right now.

O: But originally, you are from the UK right?
S: I was born in the UK, I’m a bit of a mixture myself, but the UK is where i went to school and grew up predominantly.

O: So how come you ended up in Belgrade?
S: I’ve been working in music for quite a long time. I was working in Ireland, then in London, DJing, organising shows and festivals. Then I got a job where I was traveling all over the place, creating projects in strange places like Turkmenistan and Armenia. After that I somehow didn’t want to go back to familiar territory, so I came here for a change and to force myself to do something new. But people don’t believe me when I say that, they think I must be on the run or something.

O: Wow that sounds amazing!  How would you describe the scene over in Belgrade compared to here in the UK/London?
S: Hmm… It’s an entirely different thing, really.

O: In what way?
S: It sort of depends what you mean by ‘the scene’. it’s much smaller here, the audience is small. In that way you don’t have lots of exclusive little scenes, people mix up a bit more, because they have to. You can also do stuff very quickly. You can get a show together in two days, get a venue, and get an audience. It’s less hassle than in the UK. The audience is smaller and there is an information gap. Sometimes we have a job to communicate what we’re doing with the audience but we try hard.

O: How would you describe the music/artists you have signed to the label?
S: The artists are pretty varied and highly international. I had a concept originally to find artists from this region but more people have come on board and i really like what it is now.  It was only when I made the first promo CD which was a mix of 25 tracks did it seem that everybody actually fitted together and we maybe had our own sound, collectively. Other people say that, so if it’s true I guess that’s good.

O: And how have you come across these artists? Did they approach you or did you have to go and find them?
S: I had to go and find them. It took a surprisingly long time. As we gathered momentum people to started to come to us. Now lots of people approach us

O: I know you have released stuff from Filtercutter and Teebs & Jackhigh, what other releases can we look forward to this year?
S: We have quite a queue of stuff. It’s very hard, releasing records is a slow process. By the time the record is ready you’re ready to do about 3 more. but I can confirm the next one is going to be by a Serbian producer called Piece of Shh… and it’s very crazy. 8bitch called it a monster. Zomby’s remixed that track for us as well, and we have a banging dubstep remix from a Spanish producer called Hektagon, so I think that record is really strong. We’ll have a series of EPs from 1000names as well, which is a collaboration with a great very weird American designer called Ben Mulkey and we’ve got French dubstep producer Helixir turning a bunch of 1000names tracks in house music.

O: How exciting! I actually remember going through records in Rough Trade in East London a month ago and I found your first release Filtercutter – 1UP. I got so excited I had to take a picture of it haha!
S: Oh man, send it to me. do you know something interesting? We’ve never seen our records.

O: I’ll send it to you. It is a crappy iPhone photo, but I was meant to meet some friend in the area, and I was showing off the picture feeling very proud (or geeky, depends on how you look at it).
S: I’m waiting for that moment. We’ve only seen our records in photographs. Our first shipment of ten disks got held up at the border and they demanded €180 to send them to us. We told them to fuck off so they sent them back to England eventually someone will bring us some in a few weeks, finally.

O: Wow, a lot of hassle. Going back to the subject however, have a 1000names always been signed to Svetlana Industries?
S: We’re putting out a compilation in a few weeks. it’s called “Custom House Boogie” and it’s dedicated to Serbian customs. I’ve known 1000names for about 3 years. I saw them play live in a pub in Sofia and was blown away.

O: I LOVE 1000names!!
S: HAHA I’ll send you some stuff.

O: I came across their music about a year ago thanks to Gav and was blown away as well.
S: Shortly after that they signed an exclusive deal with a label in France which meant they couldn’t put out music anywhere else. That meant they were doing gigs in France but maybe weren’t getting known on the UK scene or wider. When they finally got out of that deal last year we were able to do some stuff together. They’re really taking off now. They’re working with English label Black Acre, there’s supposed to be a single on Ramp, and we have a nice little series of stuff lined up. We also got soem great videos, I’m impatient to get it out there.

O: Nice choice! I can see them fit in very well with people like Blue Daisy and Fantastic Mr Fox at Black Acre.
S: Yes, they put a single out already on there. By the way, can i make a call that if there’s any 1000names fans out there who think they can make a good video hit me up!

O: Im sure there are! If peeps get in touch, I will let you know. Lastly, tell me a little about this mix you have made for the Little Miss Sunshine show.
S: Well, some of our tracks are dancefloor, some maybe not. We like do parties with eclectic sets, going on little journeys. So here we go from 144bpm down to like 85 bpm and up again and we’ve been lucky enough to get Svetlana to say a few words, which is unusual

O: Nice! Is it purly Svetlana Industries tracks or other things as well?
S: 100% svetlana produkt

O: Wohoo! Well thank you so much for taking the time to have a little chat with me. Make sure you guys keep Laid Back in the loop with the future releases.
S: We will, thanks a lot for your support. We will keep beaming, and please tell people to visit whenever they want.

After the success of their latest release SVET002, Teebs & Jackhigh’s The Tropics EP, Svetlana is now giving away 2 great remixes for free. Have a listen and cop them below:

And if you enjoyed the mix that Svetlana made exclusively for my show, you can have a listen and download it from their soundcloud:

Svetlana mix for Laidback radio by Svetlana Industries

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