---
title: "Interview with Alexander P. Sobamonk"
authors: ["nikomas.md"]
abstract: "A real driving force of underground sound"

---

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Whats up my man

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈   
All good, just been to do my rapid test.

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
ugh, I haven’t had to do one yet..

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Burns more than a bump of m

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Haha, well .. you know I’ve been totally off the drinking for a year now?

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
So you’re the Sober-monk?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Yes, haha, again

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Again? It happened before?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Yes, that’s actually how the name came out, because I had a period of sobriety when i was in London.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Oh right! I actually thought i was just making a pun, I didn’t realise it was part of the name on purpose.

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Yeah, because in London sober is pronounced “soba”

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
SOBA

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
yeah, and you know, I like those Shaolin Monks; they know the secrets of sound levitation, and they’re vegan, so powerful and sober, so you know I named it ꜱᴏʙᴀᴍᴏɴᴋ.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Ah, are you vegan?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
No, but I would like to become.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Yeah, there are a lot of like, addictive chemicals in animal products. You know they always say about cheese containing chemicals similar to serotonin or that act in similar ways. A lot of people giving up meat and cheese really struggle with the cheese, man. It’s addictive.

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Yeah, I mean i want to try, but you know I really like cheese.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Haha, yeah, I have been vegan for almost 6 years now. Honestly one of the hardest things about being vegan is actually having to block a lot of things out, and to not participate in very normal things like communal eating.

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
It must be. I’ve tried to not eat meat for a week, it was the hardest thing ever. I tried everything else, I’m not gonna drink, I’ll be sober.. But the food? Oh my god.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
One step at a time man, one step at a time.

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Yeah I guess its part of my awakening I guess. First the sober thing, now my food.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
it must be rooted to your interest in plants?


𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Exactly. The thing is, i’m in the process of finding land and setting up my own food forest to grow my own food. And when I start having fruit and vegetables that I know are full of nutrients and that are organic and bio and so on, I can try being vegan, as I can trust the food more. What we buy in stores is not the same.. Trying to become vegan when you don’t trust your food is difficult. When I set up my fruit forest, then I can make some transition with what I eat.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Well, you know, the idea of this food forest does more than just benefit you. The presence of the garden, or hearing about the garden offers some positive influence you know. To see people doing this shows that this stuff is possible. Community gardens are radical, and collective practices. Like, for example, I’m really excited about the new radio station coming out for electronic music. While it’s new and will take time to  grow, just having something to collectively be involved in and contribute to, benefits everyone around the station. Community gardens are the same situation; techno is a lot to do with counter culture,and doing things differently, and the collective gardens are the same.

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
yeah, which radio station do you mean?

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Barking Cats Radio, you know with the guys downtown.

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Ah the online radio

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Yes, I assume it will be a bit similar to the “noods radio” model, if you know it.

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Yeah, there were some nice online radio stations in the past. Proton Radio in the states. I also had a +4 radio stream on my site. When I had the +4 site it had 24/7 music playing.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Oh wow, how did you organise that?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
I was using that orange-skinned program

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
You were just streaming through VLC?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
No, not VLC re, before that. I don’t remember the name...WINAMP! I just set up a server and played through that. You know, I had mixes going on, some playlists, playing 24 hours a day on the site.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Oh wow, when was that?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
I don’t know, like 10 years ago, though it didn’t get much of a response at first.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Yeah..

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
You know I was paying for the site, not much money coming in and so on.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Well I don’t know how much an independent radio can make money, at least not for the first few years.

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Yeah it’s self funding.. I invested so much time on this haha.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈   
haha me too, spending all my money on CDCY just to do something

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Yeah well be careful, you might wake up one day and wonder if it was worth it. It’s kind of sad, I’ve been DJing since I was 15, playing electronic music from a child… put my whole life into this

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
You had electronic instruments so young? How did that happen, did you have a cool uncle or something?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
My mother was a pianist, my dad played violin and guitar. I started learning piano, so I had a small casio key board. When I was like 9 my dad got me like a big keyboard, a Kawai K20 which had you know 4 tracks of memory. I could make like 3 tracks a day, but then I had to delete them, and the  next day make new ones. Drums, Bass, Chords, Melody. It had 3 memory banks. I had a memory card but I was too young to know how to use it, so I just kept deleting them.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
You don’t have any recordings at all?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
No, I never knew how to save them.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Damn, I would love to someday take a look at those, first “ꜱᴏʙᴀᴍᴏɴᴋ” compositions with like Bossa Nova drums

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Yeah yeah, it was the first step

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
How did this turn into DJing? Were there people DJing electronic music back then?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Well my Mum and Dad had records, disco, soul, rock, so I used to play them on my grandfather’s turntables. When I was in secondary school, they showed us how to do electronic circuit boards and I had a passion for doing that; I made some lights that had microphone inputs so they would respond to the sound. I found an FM chip and started doing pirate radio off of that.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈   
when was that?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Early 90s. The band was like 2km, the antenna I bought. I built the transmitter, and I put the antenna on the top of my building and called my school mates to check it. I had two synthesisers for the jingles, I had a mic, and a tape player.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
So you would play tapes and MC?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
I would just finish school and start broadcasting all day. The feeling was amazing to just broadcast something.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
It really settled in then, this love for broadcasting.
 
𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
When I was 15 I started a show on radio one, which was the first radio in Nicosia playing english music (english speaking, popular music).

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
What did you play back then?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Mostly electronic, actually it was mainstream pop and electronic, house stuff. In ‘94 I had my first radio show on Radio one. Then in ‘95 I had the idea of creating “Kiss FM” in Cyprus with a friend who was like 35 at the time, a DJ. I would go and watch him, how he mixes and so on.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Where was that?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
In a club in Nicosia, he was playing Disco and House records. We became friends. I used to  go to Paphos with my parents, and I had my headphones you know. When you pass from Limassol to Paphos, for some reason you could pick up lebanese radio, so for around 30 minutes I could listen to “Radio DJ” or “Kiss FM” in Lebanon.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
there was no Kiss FM cyprus then?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
No. I used to listen to Kiss FM greece when I was going to Athens,thats where I got my first records actually, whenI would go to Athens. But I came home and I was telling this guy, lets see if we can set up something like Kiss Fm in Cyprus. Kiss FM wasn’t so cheesy back then, there was a lot of space to play underground sounds.  

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Like as a franchise?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Yeah, so we called Athens, and asked them about getting a license for Kiss FM in Cyprus. So he found an old radio station in Lakatamia that played greek music. This guy had a karate school and above it he had a radio station, “Cosmos Radio”, and he was selling it. He wanted a fair amount for the frequency. So my friend asked me to put in some of that but I couldn’t really put in at the time. So I told the guy I would help set it up, as he couldn’t speak english and didn’t know much about computers and so on. So I was able to assist him in the set up phase.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
At 15?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
No, I was 17. I was broadcasting for maybe 1 year by myself. On “Kiss FM” Cyprus. After that I went to melbourne and had a slot there. I was influenced a lot in Melbourne,  I played at underground parties, clubs and in DJ competitions. I was exposed to underground there I think, and I came back with a different sound.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
I think that speaks a lot for itself. Before your generation there was literally nothing of what we’re doing here today,this underground electronic music situation.

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Yeah. I helped start some of the first underground parties. We did some early ones in a club which was opened by that friend I did “Kiss FM” with (“AKRH”). I was given one night to make underground parties. I remember I set up two TV screens, and one Playstation 1 with animation; I also had some UV lights.. The first party maybe only 6 people came. Slowly, 10, 20, 50 and more.

After this, someone I knew opened “Balistic bar” in onasagorou, an English guy opened that bar, playing music with his wife. I offered to DJ for him and it became semi popular, so we started making beach parties, after that the scene was growing up to 1500 people, maik was playing there sometimes too. We ended up bringing DJs from Greece.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
You were playing the kind of music you were buying in Athens.. And this english pop music.. did you play garage?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Yeah. Garage! The night was called Blitch. These are some of the flyers we made back then

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Wow, that’s a lot of flyers, holy shit.

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Yeah. And this was one of the first club d flyers.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
That’s Club D with a “C”? Way back before it was “ᴋʟᴜʙᴅ” with a “K”?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
I helped start “Club D” re. The owner opened the club as a bar but after a while it closed.So I suggested to him that we open a club, and of course he was like “yeah!”

At that time I was invovled in “Cream”; I was playing for cream as Alex Pascal. Yeah, they had a summer club in Ayia Napa. At one point, as I said, I went to Melbourne but I was coming back each year to play at Cream. Cream is from Liverpool, you know, they make big parties around the world, and they opened a club in Ayia Napa and I was resident. I was given a tour of cream in Liverpool, and I was  inspired a lot by the DJ booth there, so I told the owner of “Club D” that I want to make this DJ booth with subwoofers inside, a fridge.. That booth was opposite the last one. At “Club D” I really wanted to start having warm up DJs as that wasn’t a thing in Cyprus.

Back then I had a DJ school, and one of my students was ᴀʟᴇx ᴛᴏᴍʙ, and he was so interested and commited, he would be the first in and the last out of all my sets. I was always playing techno towards the end, and he was always asking me what these tracks were. So I brought him in, and managed to pursuade Danny to put him on for warm ups. Unfortunately the club closed, I moved to London. It took about 3 years after that until they re-opened with Tomb.

After that the club evolved due to alex’s sound and due to him involving other DJs.  

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
When did it become more techno-oriented then? After ᴀʟᴇx ᴛᴏᴍʙ stepped forward into ᴋʟᴜʙᴅ?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Yeah, as I said, I would always play techno at the end of the night; I liked techno and underground sound for a long time, especially since melbourne and the hard techno I played back then. We couldn’t really play hard techno all night in Cyprus before then, the crowd needed to be initiated into it, to be educated about it, so I would work up from more vocal-oriented, dancing house towards harder techno. Alex was really into that sound, so naturally when he was got his chance to play, there was a crowd ready for what he was into.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
What about other DJs back then? are there other DJs who were involved then that are still active? I don’t know, Manic Maik for example?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Well everyone kind of knew each other, some were in Limassol, some were doing more commercial things, but we were aware of each other and some of us would invite each other. Some time back then there was a record store (byzantium studios that all the DJs would visit. There were new records every Wednesday so you know everyone would come.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
A big convergence of DJs on one record store.

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
And you know a lot of us played at similar clubs, for example, me and Maik both played at Versus at some point, and some of us knew each other from Kiss FM!

A lot has changed actually, but there was a lot going on then. Talking of versus, at first “Versus” was somewhere else, Leoforos Lemesou, then they moved to the capital centre (‘94 onwards); that club was amazing! That was the first club that started accepting gay people and dress you could how you want and so on. House music.. The freedom. Everyone was learning from the gay community, as they were so open, and they were travelling and learning stuff in other places. Actually they taught us a lot of things, about music and more. So that was Versus, after the original owner sold it, it changed a lot, and it wasn’t the same, not in a necessarily bad way, just being curated by someone different. I suppose a lot of the   
DJs you recognise came with the minimal movement.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Interesting point, you might be right. When did you get into the minimal, micro, less-bpm, less vocals thing?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Eh, basically when I started doing ꜱᴏʙᴀᴍᴏɴᴋ. I think it was around 2007 when I was in London.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
2007 is very close to when that situation kind of expanded in Europe, too. There was like Mille Plateaux and Perlon in the late nighties, but then it must have been like 2009 where you see [a:rpia:r] and so on.

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
No, I didn’t really know [a:rpia:r], you know what, those guys.. You know who started the minimal thing? It wasn’t the romanians

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Where then?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
The progression of house was influenced a lot by Russia. The Russians helped start the “minimal thing”. Andrey Pushkarev and I think another guy. They had a radio station. Deep Moscow.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Deep Moscow?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Deep Moscow.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Deep Moscow..

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
That must have been the first minimal radio. They were the beginning of the minimal thing at that time. Ah, it’s called Deep Mix Moscow Radio now, previously it was called “deepmix.ru”.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Where do people like Ricardo Villalobos fit into that progression?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Well I was never into the Villalobos story so much, he was  playing the house stuff like I was, and very much involved in the scene. Yet, I remember I was in London, and we drove to Berlin with my cousin, but I was listening to Deep Moscow. There was basically nothing happening back in Romania then, but Villalobos, you know he connected with the scene, and there was a kind of natural evolution that he and others followed.

Before, it was progressive house, in the evolution of house at that time, but I guess because I was playing it a lot, I felt that progressive house was a kind of cheap era, and I wanted to change that, so I evolved. I had progressive house tracks released and so on but then I wanted to just throw the progressive stuff. I wanted to keep the house because I liked it, so it evolved into minimal. That was the natural progression of house, from progressive to minimal or so. So if villalobos was doing the house stuff, and was around at that time, it was a natural evolution into minimal/micro house.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
So that’s also when you started producing less progressive stuff? When did you connect with Archipel?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
With Archipel I released as ꜱᴏʙᴀᴍᴏɴᴋ, so yeah. Well, the guy who had Archipel had another label, kalimari music, which was for underground and deep emerging  artists, less known, but some well known names. It closed down but still the releases were there. Anyway, my first releases were on an Argentinian label as ꜱᴏʙᴀᴍᴏɴᴋ, and their mastering engineer was the guy who had Archipel. So at one point he asked me to send some music. That’s how I released on Kalimari Musique, a sublabel of Archipel. Later I did however release a live set on Archipel; it was all my original music but assembled into a set. Then he asked me to become A&R for Archipel. I had to find artists and book artists for releases.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Where were you at that point?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
In Cyprus. I had to listen to a lot of artists, you know they would give me some schedule of some people they liked but also said to go and find others.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
that’s a really good position, huh? You were doing +4 at the same time right?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Well +4 started when I was in London and I saw the new technological capabilities of streaming and so on. The first site was ustream, I thought wow I can just stream like this? That was around 2009. Around then I started the first testing here, I made a page, and around 2010 we started broadcasting here on ustream, then livestream.com

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
So by the time you started +4 you were already into this phase of the progression of house?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Yeah, so I also took it to Berlin. I went over there and rented out a house/studio for a month (an artists Air B’n’B basically). I invited a lot of DJs from Berlin to the studio, and put them all to play. During that period, I had artists coming every day there. Some of the connections I made in this time helped me get a booking at Club de Visionaire; Maybe 2013? It was a aparty of one of my guests - one of the DJs couldnt play at some event, so he called me and bangladesign to play. from noon to midnight, 12 hour slot b2b. Saturday.

We didn’t have our records with us, so, believe it or not, we used a Traktor Scratch... in CdV. Surreal. It was the mecca for vinyl, and i didn’t have my vinyl... playing a tracktor scratch at cdv was so strange, the owner came down and asked me “wow,what even is this? where are your records?”; “I didnt realise it could sound good without the real vinyl”. It was full, great vibe, it still had all the plants and stuff. Amazing memories.

We got loads of offers after that, people from different countries were giving me their card saying “I own a club here, i love your music, call me, if you wanna come and    
play”.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Was this studio where you streamed with K.atou & Dygas?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
No, that was in Athens. It was at Cannibal records, we streamed from there and they asked me to help. Actually thats how .. what’s their radio? You know I helped them setting that channel up.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Cannibal radio?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Haha yeah, we set up cannibal radio through Skype!

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
You were telling them what to do over Skype?

𝒮𝑜𝒷𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝓀  
Look, the guy who opened cannibal radio was a guest at +4 in Nicosia, cause he played in Cyprus, maybe in ꜱQᴜᴀʀᴇ. I invited him and some others to my studio and streamed
them. They liked the idea and asked me if I could help them set it up. So when they went back to Athens, they called me through Skype and I would just explain to them how to
set it all up.

𝓃𝒾𝓀𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓈  
Haha, I’m amazed to be honest. It makes so much sense but somehow not. Cannibal is still going strong I think. I’ve known it for so long that it became part of the backdrop, and to find out that it is all interconnected with you, +4 and
ꜱQᴜᴀʀᴇ, is pretty mind blowing. It’s very.. Cypriot, somehow.

interview: ꜱᴏʙᴀᴍᴏɴᴋ  
host: ɴɪᴋᴏ ᴍᴀꜱ  

Love.

Find ꜱᴏʙᴀᴍᴏɴᴋ on:
www.soundcloud.com/ꜱᴏʙᴀᴍᴏɴᴋ
www.facebook.com/plusfour
