Strøm Mixx 053: Silva Snipa

Hi Sophie, thanks a lot for doing this mix for us – can you tell us a little bit about it? 

Love for havin me on! This whole mix is full of dancefloor tunes that ain’t in a hurry. Bunch of No Smoking and Joker Records slices. Some of the intros are half-time, full of kung-fu dialogue or brilliant, kind-of comedic samples that sounds like it was taped off a battered VHS. All them man were definitely smoking bare weed back then. You can imagine some dingy foggy room with loads of feet up, full-up ashtrays and the telle screen on with the Drunken Master playing, and someone’s like ‘let’s sample that.’ Recording this mix felt like I was back in the box room of my old flat, room full of mates caning spliffs and beers, spinning tunes endlessly for 5 hours straight. Them Joker records tunes was THE sound for us, still is. All them tracks don’t take themselves too seriously, none of the productions are complex or overdone or too polished and yet they still outshine anything that came after or before in my opinion. Prime era. 

How did you get into these sounds and DJ’ing overall?

Born post ’98 you either do the squat party jump up pipeline and then move onto the better stuff or you quit D&B entirely by the time you’re 25. I found a One Nation tape pack upload, Shabba D over Nasty Habits – 4 da Cause, and from there I was locked in. I needed to find more of that weird simplistic sexy early jump up style so I started digging, and for the next few years I was fully on a pirate radio hyperfixation, leaning more into darker sounds as I went.

I got close with the Singularity boys and the second time I met them in 2018 they were already scheming parties and ideas. We’d drive round Feltham in my purple MK2 Fiesta blasting the Dillinja remix of Strontium Jazz. I wrapped that car around a bend later that year, still miss having the cassette player just for those old tape packs.

Ariel (The Bass Injector) was already collecting records and really into that older style of drum & bass, and I’d practice on his setup at his flat in Shadwell. I only had about 20 quid a week to live off back then and I’d spend half of it on beers and bus rides to get over there, sometimes managing to scrape together enough for a few plates to play on his.

Drum & bass has always been cheap to buy, which never really made sense considering how good the tunes were. It never got the same traction as other dance music from back then but that was part of the appeal. It felt like our own little corner. That circle slowly grew, more people got involved and it just became about the community and having fun with it.

I was never that focused on DJing itself, it was more about being part of something with people who were into the same shit as me. I played my first set in March 2020 the week before lockdown and have been playing ever since.

During the past year it seems like a lot of boxes have been ticked off your list? What were some of the milestones for you, and what’s next for Silva Snipa? 

This past year has been mad. Playing Berghain was insane, that’s one of those things you don’t really process properly. The Kool FM nights have been big for me as well, and getting to play with artists I’ve loved since I was younger has been a bit surreal. I’ve also been able to travel a lot more through it, like going to Berlin for Berghain, Scotland next, and Malta coming up, which has all been sick. My agent Tremayne’s put me up for some of the maddest opportunities and has honestly been the best agent, he proper looks out for me. We’ve stayed up all night on the vodka mates when Vrxgo, N.E GIRL and I were playing Baggen n that’s how you know it’s a good deal. 

I want to create more stuff this year and put out more of my artwork, not even just music-related. I want to play more parties where I turn up and I’m just hanging out with people, caning tequila and having a bubble. That’s when it actually feels like a proper party. Some of the bookings I’ve done with smaller events collectives end up being all nighters and well fun, and I always wake up hungover worrying about if I bagged all my plates back up hahah!

I think I want to avoid the big commercial stuff a bit now unless it feels right. Massive crowds can be sick but they can also be stressful, especially if the set up ain’t right. I’m actually way shyer than I probably come across, or sound, whatever that means lol. I am buzzin for Ibiza this year though, that’s gonna be jokes.

I dunno, I just want everything to feel fun. Not pressuring or like a chore. It’s really easy to fall into that, especially when bigger money gets waved in front of you.