Späti 001: Interview with Marius Houschyar & Raphael Kosmos

The tracks in the album were recorded a couple of years ago, where were you and what was inspiring you at the moment?

Marius Houschyar: Yes, that is true. ‘Smell of a wet towel’, for example, is actually a live recording of a concert I played at Sameheads in the start of 2019. While ‘Umrumda Değil’ was recorded in the same year the other songs came later piece by piece. All of the songs were produced in my home in Istanbul. At these times I was still very much more into electronic music and club related sounds. Inspirations for those songs were certainly my friends and family as well as the city I live in and the streets I walk everyday.  Usually I make a group of songs that follow one coherent feeling to make an EP or an album out of it. This mini album though is more a selection of different songs from different times. Surprisingly they work together pretty well.

How has your development been from then to now?

MH: As these songs are pretty old and I am relatively productive, much has changed since then. I am constantly on the search for new music and my place in the infinite world of sound, trying to include a huge variety of genres. Since last year I dived more and more into jazz, ambient and improvised acoustic music and tried to adopt pieces of it in my work. My aim is certainly not to make dance or club musc, but music to listen to and drift away. This doesn’t mean though that I prematurely exclude certain sounds, speeds or genres. I mostly follow my own feelings and get inspired by new music I find. It’s a never ending journey and probably the only constantly progressive part of my life.

You moved to Istanbul in the meantime. How has moving to Istanbul impacted you and influenced your music?

MH: Moving to different places has always contributed a lot to my music. Since I left Germany, a place that some may consider the heart of electronic music, I stopped comparing myself with others and started to really find my own taste. During my time in Prague and Bucharest and the last three years in Istanbul my musical understanding and my own style has refined a lot and became stronger and more confident. Music is feeling and feeling is what you experience, what happens inside and outside of yourself. In Istanbul I have learned new things about culture, politics, friendship and love and certainly about myself as I grew up here somehow and became the person I am today. All those things are obviously flowing into my output.

What do you feel listening to music you made some time ago?

MH: Well, that is a bit of a tricky question. As I am listening to my own songs over and over again while producing them, I sometimes get the feeling of alienation towards them. Until a new album is completely done, I mostly get annoyed by the music and need to put distance to it. I mostly do not listen to my releases for months or even years after they came out. As so much time has passed since I made the songs of ‘Lengua Universale’, I can listen to them now with a fresh ear.

Although I usually look at my old works from the eyes of someone who knows so much better now, almost amused by the immaturity of my past self, I must admit that I find those songs still pretty legit and can definitely stand behind them, even if I am somewhere else already. The EP is good and I am certainly happy with it coming out now. Making music is like giving birth, you become a parent, you care and love it, then at one point you will have to let it go into the world.

How does your creative flow work when producing music / preparing the live set?

MH: When I am making something, I am mostly alone at my place and listen to some new inspirational music I recently found. Then, well, then I just start doing something and it kind of comes out from alone. I don’t really have an idea how it works, sometimes it doesn’t, often it does. Sometimes I start with trying to recreate something I heard somewhere else and end up at a completely different place. It is mostly not a choice of genre, but a certain feeling that I try to fulfill. While I can overdub hundreds of times when I make a song, a live set is pretty different and more difficult.

Generally I find it hard to make music for a club environment and tend more to go into the direction of listening to music, which develops slow and takes its time, still I try to adapt to the environment I am going to play in. For every live concert I play I make something completely new, I never played one song twice and also my setup is changing due to different things I am trying to do. This time I will include my laptop again as it is an extremely powerful tool for sampling and saves a lot of space in the luggage 🙂

When was the idea to start the label born and why did you decide to do it?

Raphael Kosmos: I think the idea came up like 3 years ago. I was used to working on projects in a team (in the past with illegal sound systems or on the Endless Illusion thing with Ladislav). Even though I am a team player and I love to work with people, lately I had a strong desire to work on my own things.

Proper dedication to Späti began deep in the 1st wave of corona when there was “nothing to do” so I had time to start working on it. I already had some demos on my disk and some experience from the past, so it was easy.

How did you come up with the name Späti?

RK: Hehe, Späti is just fun. I remember one night last year in Kreuzberg, drinking beers at some random späti with legendary Jarin, I was like “yeah my label will be called like this lol”. Those who know me know I can’t be too serious, so even with the name I had to be slightly stupid.

Who else is involved in the label?

RK: I’m doing it all alone, but I’m surrounded by people who are helping me with things I’m lost in. Olin, @regulator_hladiny, Zdenda & Radek from our Graffneck record store who help me with accounting and shipping, and the best human being on the planet Andrea as an everlasting support in everything.

Who works on graphic design?

RK: For graphic design I work with David Šrot (Studio Zdaar) and Jakub Hájek. These two guys perfectly fit my vision of a whitelabel. David is a more typography-oriented designer and Jakub is very good at sketching and drawing. Together they make really weird and funky stuff and I’m really happy to cooperate with them!

How did the collaboration with Houschyar come to life?

RK: I met Marius in Prague something like 3 years ago. He studied at an art school here for a few months. At that time we were chilling together pretty often. We talked about music a lot, and also played some gigs and radio shows together. He was jamming synths at Růžová where he used to live and I’ve asked for some tracks already then. Then he moved to Istanbul, we stayed in touch and after some time I picked the rest of the tracks and the mini-lp was ready to be mixed and mastered. In the meantime he did an album for Macadam Mambo plus some other interesting releases which only confirms he’s definitely a young man to follow.

What’s next for the label? Any new plans on the table already?

RK: Pressing plant industry is overwhelmed at the moment, so we have to wait a bit. But I just bought the rights for a reissue of one Danish wave hit from 1983. Super looking forward! Anyway I don’t have any musical limits for the future. I’d be extremely happy to release & support some local producers, but we’ll see what the future brings.