Shrike is a Sri Lankan-born, Scotland-raised DJ based between London and Norwich. A former classical musician, she came to electronic music relatively late and has since been having a whale of a time on the dancefloors of places like Corsica Studios, Fold and Phonox. Her sets are a textured journey through dark, simmering depths and euphoria, spanning mostly chug, house, EBM, electro, techno and trance.

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Q: Name/Pronouns/Where are you based?

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A: shrike, she/her, Norwich/London

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Q: Tell us about your mix for the show, what was the concept you had in mind for it?

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A: Well, the truthful answer is that you told me I could play whatever I want so I did just that! When you’re a beginner DJ, as I am, you often get gigs playing background ‘easy listening’ tunes from genres like house, disco, funk etc or more chill warm up sets. There’s nothing wrong with those genres at all, but I personally favour darker, grittier stuff and so it was a real pleasure being able to play some of those kinds of tunes from my collection.

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Q: What did your journey into music and djing look like?

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A: My journey into music began at age 3, when I began playing the violin. I also took up the piano a couple of years later and then the bagpipes (I’m Scottish!) a couple of years after that. I was exclusively a classical musician. As a result, I mostly listened to classical music or whatever the people around me listened to. I do remember that the first ever album I bought for myself, with my pocket money, was the band Playgroup’s eponymous album. I heard it in a shop and this was in the days before Shazam so I had to run to the checkout desk and ask if they knew what it was. The person behind the counter showed me the CD case and wrote the name on a piece of receipt paper, as my trusty Nokia 3310 didn’t have a camera. I then went straight to HMV and bought a copy.
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My journey into DJing started way after that when I went to uni at SOAS. A friend joined Beat Soc and I thought it was extremely cool but was far too intimidated to go along. It felt like everyone there had been listening to their parents’ vinyl collection of rare and niche tunes since they were five and that was not my experience at all. Instead, I saved up for about six months and bought a Numark Mixtrack Pro 1. I massively struggled with learning how to use it and I told myself that I, as a classical musician, had no place in electronic music and let it fall by the wayside. That mixer is still sitting in my parents’ attic in Sri Lanka! The urge to mix never went away, though. In 2021 I bought another controller which I let sit in my flat for a year before I decided that the world was ending and that if I was
going to do it at all I’d better crack on. I started listening to music more intentionally, building myself playlists on Spotify; I began listening to older tracks on YouTube; and I tried to teach myself beatmatching in November 2022 using a tiny speaker hooked up to my controller which went terribly, as I couldn’t make it loud enough to hear without annoying my neighbours. Then in early 2023 I applied to Saffron’s Mix Nights, got a place on the course and began learning to mix on the 9th of May this year. Since then, I have been lucky enough to get a trial radio show at Voices Radio which will hopefully turn into a residency. I have also played my first handful of gigs, both doing background tunes and playing to a club dance floor and I am loving it!‍

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Q: How do you manage your mental health and well-being working in the industry? What specific elements impact that?

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A: This is an interesting one as I love to sleep. I need 8.5 hours a night and I’m following a passion that is definitely going to get in the way of that. It’s been manageable so far as I’m only doing warm up gigs, but if I ever get to the stage where people want to book me for a 4am slot, I am going to have to learn how to summon sleep at 7pm so I can get to the club rested! The other thing that gets me is social media. My god I hate it. I have deleted several Instagram accounts over the years and nuked my Facebook ages ago. When I first did the big purge it had an incredibly positive impact on my mental health and I’m wary about social media now. As a new DJ, I find it can be quite demoralising constantly being able to compare myself to other people that I perceive as DJs who’ve been doing this for as long as I have. It’s all perception and projection though - everyone puts up their highlights and there isn’t a huge amount of vulnerability that I see on social media. You really have no idea how long anyone’s been doing anything, or what other influences they’ve had in their life. For example, being a classical musician meant it was instinctive for me to pick up concepts like bars and phrasing, but you’d have no idea that was my background from looking at my Instagram. I manage social media by trying not to be on it too often. I used to have a ‘Saturdays only’ rule that worked really well for me, but I felt like I was missing opportunities, be it open decks or artists sharing
new releases. I’ve since learned that isn’t the case as there are always more opportunities to be had.

Q: Alcohol and in particular drugs, are ubiquitous with dance music. What is your relationship with these from a personal and artistic perspective?

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A: I gave up alcohol a decade ago - I had my ten year anniversary in October this year actually! I never liked it but I drank to get drunk, because that’s what everyone else was doing. It was pretty terrible back then, I used to go out and get totally shitfaced once a week and wake up not remembering anything. Then one night, after an evening of free drinks at a work event just after I graduated, I was far too drunk and had what could have been a very bad time if not for the kindness of strangers and decided that was that. So, on the 12th of October 2013, I decided to stop drinking. I quit cold turkey overnight, and it was possibly the best decision I’ve ever made for myself.

Drugs will always be enmeshed with dance music, especially in the underground scene. I think they tie into the hedonism, resistance and, often, the communal aspects of it. I personally believe that the ‘war on drugs’ is futile and being lost every day and that they should be decriminalised and regulated. There is a great book called Drug Wars by Neil Woods and J.S. Rafaeli that details the history of recreational drug use in the UK as well as the perils of criminalising it. Woods was a former undercover police officer and is now part of the international drug policy reform movement; his opinions are shaped by what he saw while working as a drugs operative. It’s always interesting seeing the trends that come and go. I feel like there’s been discourse recently around the role of ketamine. Some people think that the more introverted, dissociative experience it provides has weakened the fabric of the dance floor as people are having individual experiences rather than communal ones. Others seem to think it’s fine and is just another trend. Whatever the drug, I think that issues arise when people listen to music so they can enjoy their drugs, rather than taking drugs to enhance their enjoyment of the music. That’s personal opinion though - often being at the rave is a form of escapism and if you need to entirely check out of reality every once in a while to make reality more bearable, so be it. Just make sure it’s intentional and occasional.

Q: In your opinion, what social and industry specific issues exist in dance music?

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A: So much sexism. My partner sent me a photo of an event flyer that said “<MALE ARTIST NAME> + All Female DJ Lineup” and rightly pointed out that it’s hardlyan all female lineup if the headliner is a man, nor is it great that the organisers thought his name was the only one worth putting on the flyer. I also think that female/femme presenting DJs are under a lot more pressure to think about more than just the tracks they play. They are judged on what outfit they’re wearing, how much they smile, how much they dance. I’ve seen more than enough male DJs rock up to a gig, play in jeans and a faded t-shirt, do zero dancing or engaging with the audience and then leave. They don’t get any criticism for not being ‘fun’ enough. I once saw one of my favourite DJ acts - a duo, both women - play and some young guys at the front were hassling them for free drinks! That would never happen if it were men playing. One of the best ways I’ve seen a DJ handle something like this was Dr Rubinstein at Transmissions this year. Some
dude at the front was waving his phone at her over the decks with something on the screen and she just batted him away with the back of her hand. She didn’t even look up, just wrinkled her nose like he was a bad smell and carried on playing and it was spectacular. He looked so embarrassed and melted into the crowd pretty quickly.

Q: What would a fairer industry for all look like to you? What needs to change?

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A: I think there need to be better rights around protecting artists and performers. There should be higher standards around artist welfare, both physical and mental. It’s an incredibly gruelling job with terrible working hours and I’d like to see clubs taking the lead in terms of protecting artists from that. Artists and performers are freelancers; this leaves them without sick pay, holiday pay, or a reliable retirement plan on top of which there’s a lack of steady employment. I hear so many stories of performers being paid peanuts and having to chase invoices once they’ve played. It doesn’t seem fair that they are the meat of the industry but don’t have access to this kind of stability while often large venues and events are run by people who benefit from such things without passing said benefits down. I’d also really like to see more DJs crediting producers when they share clips of a crowd going wild to a track at a festival/club/whatever. I think it’s bananas that this isn’t the default way of being. If you’re pushing a track on socials, you’re using it to build your brand and therefore you’re profiting from it. Unless it’s your track, it’s only fair that you tag/name the person that produced it. Also, if more DJs did that, producers would make more money for their songs and in turn would hopefully be able to make more tracks that those DJs could buy and play etc etc. Surely a never ending cycle of wins.

Q: What are your thoughts on social media’s role as part of an artist's career? I.e balancing
its negative factors with the opportunity it provides?

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A: I do wish I could be like Helena Hauff and have zero social media. It must be so freeing. That said, I have gotten pretty much all of my little breaks from social media, from connecting with someone who advised me to apply to Voices Radio to being contacted by event promoters to play gigs. There is an abundance of opportunity on social media, but I personally find it hard to benefit from that without it also taking a toll on my mental health. I used to think that I had to apply for every single opportunity I saw. I believe the opposite now and I only apply for or agree to things if I truly have the capacity and that’s helped me loads. I no longer spend hours trawling stories and hashtags looking for open decks or the chance to win warm up slots. If it happens, it happens.

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Q: Any advice you’d give to an artist or DJ starting out?

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A: Download and play the tunes you love, not the tunes you think you should play! And don’t pigeonhole yourself too early in terms of genre. Finally, allow yourself to like the things you like. If you do this consistently, that’s how you’ll find your sound (that elusive thing!). My partner was the person who taught me there is no such thing as good or bad taste, there’s just taste. If someone suggests that you have ‘bad taste’, all they are saying is that your taste doesn’t align with their taste. Also - if you get booked for a gig and people are paying for tickets and/or drinks, it means profit is being made and you should get paid! Unless you’re happy to do it for free because it’s a cause close to your heart. Tempting as it is to do things for exposure, your time is worth money.

Q: Share an event/festival you feel is going against the grain and moving the scene forward
in a positive way

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A: I feel like this is an obvious answer but I loved Body Movements this year. There was so much queer joy and it was fantastic to see room being made for upcoming DJs. As a South Asian, I of course love Daytimers and what they’re doing. In terms of venues, Fold is probably my favourite club in the world and they regularly book and promote local talent, instead of relying on flying big international names in. I’ve only been to The Cause once but I hear they have a similar approach.

Q: Any brands or platforms taking steps towards positive change that you’d recommend
people support?

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A: Saffron! Truly, without Saffron I wouldn’t be where I am now. They are driving
serious demographic changes in the industry and have built a collaborative and
generative community that I am very grateful to be a part of.‍

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Q: Who are your favourite upcoming artists and/or djs right now? Show them love.

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A: Aquamarine (@aquamarine.mp3) is doing incredible stuff with her Wet Dreamz
night. I’m yet to go, purely because I don’t live in London anymore, but as soon
as I’m able to I will! Vigilante (@vigilante_dj) is someone I met at a Beatriarchy
night and she has been going from strength to strength. She just started her
Foundation FM residency and is crushing it. Finally, in Norwich I connected with
Paris Stilton (@parisfstilton) on Instagram and she was kind enough to invite me
to have a little b2b jam at Pirate. I had so much fun and she took the time to
teach me loads of effects tricks, encouraged me to note down the info for any
track she played that I liked and even got me playing some gabber! It was wild.