Sublimate with Riya at Cross tonight!

Interview by: LIQUID DNB CREW

Well hello there Riya, how are you?
Hiya! I'm really well thanks! Looking forward to the weekend!

We can't wait for the upcoming Liquid Flights at Cross Club, have you ever been to Prague or Cross Club specifically?
No I've never been and always wanted to visit! I've heard it's a lovely city and that the club is amazing! I haven't Googled it as I want it to be a surprise! I’m very excited to play and I’m looking forward to seeing the crowd's reaction!

You’ve worked with a ton of artists, but is there still someone on your „bucket list“ that you haven't done a tune with?
Yeah, lots…and the list is always growing. Calibre, Goldie, Dawn Wall, Wilkinson, Nu:tone, Spectrasoul, FD, Marky, the Brazilian boys. There are plenty I'd like to work with again as well!

Why ‚Sublimation‘? (the title for your debut album)
Sublimation by definition means to „raise to a higher status“. In Freudian Psychology/Mental Health, Sublimation is a mature form of psychological defense in which the ego protects itself from anxiety/other unwanted emotions by channeling those emotions into something productive like music or songwriting, or anything that acts as an outlet to take the person's mind off problematic thoughts. I stumbled across this during a yearlong training course in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy with the future goal of becoming a therapist. The course taught me so many things about the relationship between present behaviour and past experience and how who we are now is deeply affected by what we experience as children. As part of the training I had to study Freud’s defense mechanisms, which is to say, mechanisms we employ to cope with the stress of life. It was at that point I discovered sublimation and thought wow, that would make a good concept for an album lyrically and so…‚sublimation‘ was born!

Did you have other names for the album that didn't make the cut?
A few yeah! Aside from ‚Sublimation‘, the top three names I toyed with were ‚Riyality‘ for obvious marketing reasons but that's super cheesy and it didn't sit well with me, and the style of lyrics I was writing. ‚Attic‘…because I made all of the album whilst living in the attic of a house, and I thought it tied in well with the idea of having an attic of the mind – the subconscious – where you suppress things/hide all of your unwanted thoughts and desires, but again that didn't seem to feel like the right title and the last one was ‚Connected Distance‘. This title was borne out of my observation that people can be so fickle, including myself… how one minute one can be so connected to something, and so in love with it, and yet the next be bored, disconnected and uninterested. It's a battle between being connected and feeling distant, being near and then far, love and hate, etc. I didn't go with that because I realised my favourite band's album is called ‚Connected‘ and it felt too close to that! So, sublimation won!

What was the biggest boost for your career as a singer?
I think everybody knows the answer to that! Writing and releasing ‚Open Page‘ with Lenzman was the start of it all for me!

Any highlights from this year so far?
From Dec 2014 to now, in no particular order: winning the ‚Best Vocalist‘ award at the D&B Arena Awards last year, working with Dynamite MC on Fear Bites and that track making number 1 in the Beatport D&B sales charts, releasing a debut album with some of the best talents around right now in my 30th year, that album making album of the month in Mixmag, being supported by Native Instruments to DJ and play my own songs using the Traktor Kontrollers, and helping the London team to win a soundclash at Building Six, o2 Arena this month.

Now a question for those tech savvy geeks, why did you choose the native instruments S8, did you check out more gear? Who inspired you to pick up a DJ/producer live setup and perform that way?
In the beginning I wasn't sure whether to use Ableton Live or Traktor but after discussing my vision with Native Instruments and explaining the challenges I faced, it soon became clear that using one of their controllers with stems technology was the best option to allow me to do what I wanted to do! Using Traktor & Traktor controllers I can mix and mash up the album stems creatively and independently, giving me complete control and freedom. Yes, it's nice to be able to focus just on singing and the performance side but unfortunately I don't always get the chance to just sing my songs because I'm usually hosting somebody else's set. But this allows me to do that and give the fans what they want. There are so many possibilities as well that go beyond the album, and that’s really exciting. I’d love to do Riya DJ sets, and other Riya live sets where I bring other vocalists or MCs on board to host and we work together. But one step at a time!

Check out Riya LIVE at Liquid Flights tonight at Cross Club Prague