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Music

Why Jamaica Suk Ditched Bands in The Bay to Make Techno in Berlin

After listening to her "Spektrum" EP, we've decided that the move was a good idea.

"I moved to Berlin two summers ago from San Francisco," says California native and rising techno star Jamaica Suk. "I played in a psychedelic rock band playing bass." The affinity for playing leftist guitarry music runs in the family. Suk's grandfather played with blues legend Muddy Waters back in the day, but she eventually found herself drawn to computer music and creative control. "It's tough to be in a band!" she exclaims. "I'm amazed by those that can make it happen. Maybe I am a bit of a control freak when it comes to my music. I like things to go my way if I have a vision. That's why I went to school to learn it. Going to school for audio engineering was the big changing point in my life."

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It was around then that a love for machine music began to eclipse and slowly merge with a growing discontent with the confines of San Francisco, a city with more house music than affordable housing. "I was getting a bit fed up with living in San Francisco because it was so expensive," Suk explains. "Don't get me wrong, I love the city. I had finished audio engineering in 2010 and I was just bartending and working side jobs like trimming weed, just trying enough money to pay rent. At the end of the day, I barely had any time to create my own music. It's really a struggle there, being an artist. I was like 'fuck it,' and moved onto my friend's couch for a month to save money to visit Europe. Berlin was the first place I came to."

She fit right in. "Berlin is a really welcoming city. I remember going out and just staying out until I had to come back to check out of the room." She never planned on staying, but she soon found herself, in typically Berliner fashion, spending her time in a commune-esque creative space above a nightclub. She explains, "I have a music studio that I built here above a club called Wilde Renate. It's kind of a music collective. I have two neighbors, there's three little spaces in the flat we have above the club. Each room has no doors, no windows, so we had to build sound panels and everything. It took a while to build."

It was there that she created her Spektrum EP, 5 tracks of deeper-leaning techno that swell with atmosphere and attitude. We've got the premiere of track 2, "Lost Antics" above. In her words: "When I created it, I wasn't thinking of where it was going, I just wanted to create a really deep vibe, similar to an experience like being on the Berghain floor, where you get that really heavy bass that pulls you into a trance and you can just feel meditative. The chords that I put on top of it were trying to have a funky, lighter melody on top of it. I was feeling kind of far away from home, missing all my friends and family, but feeling really connected to the music here in Berlin and finding my own voice."

Still, the experience hasn't been without it's troubles. "I have a barrier almost every other day," she explains. "Whether it's a language barrier or a cultural thing, but with the techno scene, a lot of people are really connected because of the music and people find ways to relate to each other." And the weirdest thing about ze Germans? "They eat so much bread! How can anyone eat that many carbs and keep their figures!?"

Spektrum comes out December 4 on Face to Face.

Find Jamaica Suk on FB // Soundcloud // Twitter

Jemayel Khawaja is THUMP's Managing Editor - @JemayelK