Creator studio
Remixing the Format
Introduce yourself/yourselves.
We are Lucas (DJ name CRYME) and Glenn. We live in Berlin and are co-founders of the Berlin record label SEVEN. Glenn is from the UK, Lucas comes from Berlin, and we are boyfriends and label partners.
What’s the backstory to SEVEN?
We’ve been working together for a couple of years, with Glenn being manager and booker and CRYME being the artist. As CRYME started producing more of his own tracks, we realised we wanted to build a label to showcase and release music within our musical vision. CRYME’s musical journey started in techno and then moved to house, so his style is house music but with a techno edge. That same musical vision became the vision for SEVEN, which sits at the intersection of House and Techno. We love working with artists known for techno who show their hidden house music side through us and we love mixing things – having house tracks remixed by techno artists.
Your approach to how you run the label is unique. Can you first tell us how you’re curating your roster with a focus on queer and FLINTA artists?
The underground scene has developed in recent years, but it is still, at its core, run and controlled by mostly straight white men. And there is nothing wrong with straight white men at all, but we wanted to make a label which recognises that sometimes amazing artists from other groups can get a little less attention or even be overlooked. But rather than creating a Queer or FLINTA* only label, we wanted to build something open to everyone that lets them come together, make friends, collaborate and make great music.
So we describe the label as “Queer and FLINTA* leaning”, which means we are open to everyone, but we are mindful of the artists we represent, and we want at least half of our work to be from Queer and FLINTA* identifying artists.
It’s not easy as there are a lot fewer female artists producing in our music niche than we would like, so we have to work and hunt hard to find artists to work with, but I guess that’s the whole point. We need to invest and work hard to encourage and provide an outlet for these talented people who sometimes struggle to find a great label to work with.
Tell us about your decision to be progressive in how you reimburse artists
We were really inspired by the pioneering work Aslice did in their short life. They pointed out to everyone that the scene isn’t healthy because performing DJ’s get paid for their sets but none of that money flows back to the producers that made the tracks that they play. Aslice closed last year but they left a legacy of people being more aware of this.
When we wrote the SEVEN business plan, we thought about how to be a “Producer First” label and what things we wanted to change in our small corner of the scene. So, we start with a 70/30 royalty split in favour of the artist. We pay a small advance to every artist for their work, and we commit to honest, transparent and regular royalty reporting. This might not sound like a big deal but if you work in the underground music scene you realise that these things are rare. For many of our artists, we are the first label that has ever paid them anything.
Define the sound of SEVEN for the uninitiated.
We love that sweet spot between house and techno, where you can’t quite place the genre. We want happy, love-filled, smiling dancefloors, so our sound is upbeat and full of positive vibes. Techno can have a lot of darkness and black, and that’s fine if you want that, but our place is more colourful.
How’s the response been so far?
We are six months in, three EPs out, and our first VA (Various Artists Compilation) will be launched in February. Starting anything is hard; it’s always most challenging to get moving rather than improve and grow once you are in motion. It’s a real struggle finding and signing FLINTA* producers, for example; that is our biggest problem. But being conscious of that makes us work even harder on it – we need to win the trust of the artists out there. But our music is getting a great reaction; we are building a community around what we do, and the feedback from the artists we work with is great. Several of them have said we are the most professional label they have worked with, and that’s wonderful feedback.
How important is the sense of community for you, your audience, and what you’re doing in a wider sense?
Building a sense of community and investing early in that community is hugely important. Most of the people who we want to be listening to our music don’t have a lot of money, and we are super mindful of that when setting prices for music, merch and events, for example. We try to be as kind, supportive and understanding of our community as possible. Running a label like this is not a get-rich-quick scheme, but it is truly a labour of love and hugely rewarding when it goes well.
Having Berlin as your base must be a bonus?
Berlin definitely helps us as a base. It has an excellent reputation for being at the forefront of dance music, and we are super lucky to be surrounded by many talented artists and people working in the industry. Lots of our artists are from outside Berlin and Germany, but they all know and respect what goes on in Berlin, so yes, it helps.
The city’s status as a bastion of techno is the stuff of legend. Are there other strands of Berlin’s music culture that you feel are worth checking out?
Berlin is full of bubbles.When you’re in the Techno bubble all you see and hear are techno parties and techno labels. But right next to it there’s a house music bubble, an R&B bubble and loads more. And that’s one of our main points of focus – to build bridges between communities and link these bubbles together.
Now you’re making merch, what are your influences for the collection? And how do you want the wearer to feel?
We didn’t want to do cheap, trashy, normal merch. We wanted your SEVEN t-shirt or hoodie to be your favourite, your go-to. That’s how we fell in love with Creator Studio because the quality of the blanks was next-level. We want people to buy a SEVEN shirt and still wear it in three years.
Who’s behind the designs themselves?
We have the most incredible designer called Milla Barbanera who designs everything for us – our brand, release artwork, website, everything. Our first merch range we kept simple with just various uses of our logo and strapline Smile When You Dance. Our 2025 collection will have even more creative designs by Milla and we can’t wait. We also want to collaborate with other Berlin artists on special collections, which is super exciting.
Can you run us through the garments you’ve selected from our True Blanks range?
Sure. The blanks we use the most are the Boxy Tee, Boxy Hoodie.
Finally, where can we listen to SEVEN online and IRL
IRL we have our first big party at ELSE in Berlin on Sunday 25th May. It is a super special daytime and nighttime event with a whole timetable of DJs playing back-to-back, so every slot has two DJs playing together. That’s us bringing people together again with unexpected artist combinations.
Online we are on all the major streaming platforms. To find out what is being released check out our website at www.seven.berlin and you can find all of our releases for sale on Bandcamp https://sevenberlin.bandcamp.com/merch. All of our music and our DJ Mix series is on SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/sevenberlin
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