If you’re a real deep house enthusiast, that kind who’s always looking for top quality productions, chances are you’ve heard loads of music from this record label as it’s nothing but a synonym of that. Once again, Steyoyoke is bringing forth its unique concept within the 5th edition of ‘Family Affair’, a VA born out of the ability of its family members to complement each other’s’ productions through remixing. Coming out July, the 15th.

More than an outlet for the art of talented, sensitive and forward thinking musicians, Steyoyoke has become a consistent provider of full musical experience, completely understanding the heart and soul of good music always with its vanguard approach as an outstanding characteristic. All of that being only possible with the guidance of an experienced DJ and producer, with exquisite A&R skills.

Soul Button is a man with a very peculiar view of music as an art form and his achievements so far, derive from it, both as producer and Label Boss. He managed to establish a strong and well defined identity, not only for his own sounds, but for an entire universe of musical productions, talented artists and that way he made out of his record label, a family and a relevant brand, gathering a repertoire of producers that his proud to work with.

This repertoire is properly represented at ‘Family Affair Vol. 5’, where a complex puzzle comes together and you can see the sound of each producer fitting beautifully with every other and again, Steyoyoke contributes to blur the line between deep house and melodic techno.

When We Dip scores two goals with an exclusive premiere from ‘Family Affair Vol. 5’ and an interview with Soul Button ahead of the release.

Welcome Soul Button.

WWD: Please, give our readers a little introduction words for this beautiful remix we are premiering at ‘When We Dip’?

Soul Button: I guess I just took her beautiful melodies and I gave it my touch. The original track was amazing for me and I am very curious now to see how people will react to my remix. It’s always difficult to remix a successful original track. I played it in my last Inner Symphony #012 episode, and if I remember well, people loved it, so let’s see what happens.

WWD: If you had to put your style of production into words, which ones would they be?

Soul Button: I think it’s deep house with uplifting melodies and progressive touch. It’s what we call Ethereal Techno.

WWD: Have you grown up in Germany? What are your first musical memories and what have you grown up listening to?

Soul Button: No, I was born and grew up in Italy. Then I moved to London where I learnt a lot about the music industry and then finally I enjoyed the underground techno Berlin scene.

When I was 15 I was listening to Kraftwerk. They completely opened my mind.

WWD: Steyoyoke describes itself as a label dedicated and committed to discovering only the most forward thinking musicians. To all the aspiring producers out there, what does it take to have a track released on Steyoyoke in 2016?

Soul Button: Well, in general Steyoyoke is a project which was supposed to be a closed family made of the 5 artists who are part of the label since the beginning: Soul Button, MPathy, Dahu, Nick Devon and BLANCAh. This is actually even the perfect chronologic order. It doesn’t mean that we are not open to release other talented artists, and that’s why we involved other artists like Clawz SG. In general we don’t like to introduce new artists only to release a single EP, even if it happened already. In the future, we will keep having open eyes on new artists, but we will release their music, only if we are pretty sure about their personality and if the style completely fits with our music direction.

WWD: BLANCAh gave us an amazing interview earlier this year, when we talked about the term “Ethereal Techno”, which we know has thrust both the Steyoyoke sound and branding. Can you tell us this story from your point of view?

Soul Button: I was in tour in America with Dahu and we went to play in Chicago. I was playing and Dahu was talking to the wife of the promoter. And suddenly she said… “mmm, I don’t know how I can describe this music, but I would call this style something like… ethereal techno”. Dahu run to me and said… “Chris, we finally have the definition of our music. She called it Ethereal Techno. It’s amazing, isn’t it?”… Then we came back to Berlin and we shared with the others. All started like this. P.S. this girl is working with us right now and mainly she has the task to invent names, titles and concept, and we love her so much. Her name is Jewel.

WWD: Can you tell us a little bit about Steyoyoke’s philosophy? What are the essential characteristics required to be part of the crew?

Soul Button: First of all we are all REAL producers. Once we released a fake producer but we didn’t know. It happened and we are sorry for that. We got many complaining emails and we found out from our followers. We were quite shocked too.

Except this, we believe in the concept of the family, we are all nice friends, we help each other, we share music, we share samples, we share melodies, we chat every day, we never stop talking and thinking about many different projects.

WWD: Who’s the most recent up and coming artist to catch your eye and why?

Soul Button: We already introduced months ago Clawz SG, who is an super skilled producer and he’s already 100% part of the family. We have introduced recently Solemn Eye who made a very nice EP and I’m personally looking forward to hearing the next steps. The next one will be Rauschhaus, a German talented artist who already made many beautiful tracks and I personally love and play a lot his productions. On Steyoyoke Black instead we are going to release a Brazilian artist, but I can’t tell you too much.

WWD: You demonstrate brilliant A&R skills through the label’s releases. Do you have any special ritual for listening and selecting your next releases?

Soul Button: No, it’s very simple. Normally Jewel listen to the demos and if there’s something interesting, she send to me. If I think it’s something that could fit, I forward to all the others Steyoyoke artists and when I have the feedbacks from everyone, we take a decision.

WWD: Do you find yourself spending more time involved with Steyoyoke rather than producing or do both work seamlessly around each other?

Soul Button: I would say I invested 4 years of my life working 24 hours a day for all of us. Now the situation is a bit different because I finally succeed to build a lovely team and I have more time to focus on music and traveling. It’s still hard tho.

WWD: Steyoyoke is completing next year, 5 years of musical awesomeness. Is this the start of a big celebration?

Soul Button: Yes, this V.A. is just the beginning of the celebration of our 5 years. The anniversary EP plus a Steyoyoke album will come between December and March. We will turn 5 exactly in March 2017.

WWD: What do you consider to be the toughest challenge that DJ/Producer and Label boss position puts you through?

Soul Button: As DJ I can tell you that it’s not easy at all to spend 3 days a week between airports, hotels, queues, passport controls and a few hours sleeping. As label boss, I think the hardest part is put people together, to find the right people, to trust the right ones.

WWD: About traveling, are you the kind of guy who enjoy embracing different cultures or is the traveling part something you don’t really enjoy?

Soul Button: I love to travel, I love to meet people and I don’t mind if sometimes it’s boring, it’s all part of a long experience. I always try to enjoy every single moment. Right now I am in Sharm El Sheikh, I arrived yesterday and I don’t have anything to do until tomorrow night. I don’t consider this work, I take advantages of my trips to rest my brain from the chaotic days in Berlin.

WWD: When you’re not producing, performing or busy with music stuff, what do you like to do?

Soul Button: I have to say that it’s very rare but what I like is to invite my friends at home and cook Italian vegetarian food for them.

WWD: What are your next big dates? Where can fans expect to find you?

Soul Button: I honestly decided to have something like a break because last winter was too crazy. I have 3 gigs in San Diego, Los Angeles and Montreal together with BLANCAh in July. Then I will make a stop and start again in October. We have a huge label night in Beirut on 8th of October with all the Steyoyoke Artists, and then I will be back again in Mexico on 29th of October for a big festival.

WWD: Looking past 2016, what would make it a successful year for you? What are your big future plans?

Soul Button: I have 2 huge projects in mind that will require lots of time. One is the first Soul Button album and the other one is a big charity project which will help children in Africa. I can’t give dates because both are very demanding in terms of efforts, work and time.

Thanks a lot.

Words by Gabriel Gonzalez