The Lowdown: Surusinghe

One of London’s compelling new voices, Surusinghe has swiftly carved out her own distinct space, fusing earthy basslines with high-energy rhythms as she draws inspiration from the environments she finds herself in as well as her Sri Lankan heritage and her late father who was a musician himself. Hailing from Melbourne and now based in London, Surusinghe has firmly found her feet in the scene with esteemed releases on the likes of AD93 and TraTraTrax alongside her non-stop global touring schedule including upcoming dates at Drumsheds, Boiler Room Sydney and Mexico City, Phonox, and Razzmatazz before embarking on an Australia tour to kick off 2025 in style.

A fierce champion of sounds and voices, Surusinghe’s love for music is evident through everything she does. Whether that’s her regular Rinse FM residency inviting guests like Wost, Tano, Nykshan, Toma Kami & Angelita, Tequm, and Plus One (to name a few) who bring new music and perspectives to the world of Suze or her newly-launched platform Drifting which she co-runs with her best friend Cali. Announcing the launch of Drifting on her birthday last month, Surusinghe and Cali aim to use their Substack to showcase underground music culture through interviews, curated playlists and mixes, a book club and also a party series. The first Drifting party will be a collaboration with another sick London blog Tropical Waste with the pair taking over Ormside Projects with an insane lineup featuring Mun Sing, Simo Cell, Sarra Wild and a very special guest. An industry which needs more platforms and spaces to champion underground music artists, we’re very excited about Drifting and can’t wait to see where the pair take the platform.

In the lead up to Surusinghe’s forthcoming performance at Drumsheds this weekend, we chat to the dynamic creative about their plans and motivations behind Drifting, what she’s recommending to people at the moment, performance rituals and routines to help with anxiety before a gig, the scenes and sounds she’s obsessed with right now and much more.

Hey Suze! How’s it going? What have you been to lately? 

Chanel da cowboy!! Helllooooo 🙂
Going good, thank you. Hmmm, I’ve been quite busy lately! I’m putting the finishing touches on a new EP at the moment. I’m about to move houses so slowly getting my life together. I’m about to head to Mexico so I’m getting excited for that! And I just started watching ‘Desperate Housewives’ for the first time, so i’m seriously loving that.

I wanted to start this interview by talking about your latest venture, Drifting, which is a blog and party series you’ve just launched with Cali. What was the motivation behind starting this platform?

Eeep, yes we did! So (for those who don’t know) Cali is my best mate and we both share a pretty deep love for music that definitely laid the foundations for our friendship. I truly believe that Cali is the biggest ‘head’ I know when it comes to his knowledge of music and I guess the original motivation came from wanting a place to express ourselves but being awkward as hell on socials/self promotion so a blog felt like the most natural format!

From there, it grew and expanded to be something that we wanted to become more educational and community based. Somewhere where we could actually interact and engage with more people who wanted to share music in the same way we did.

In your announcement post for Drifting you mentioned the weird space that the industry is in right now and your hopes of creating a community around the blog that cares about keeping the scene alive. Outside of championing releases and artists via that platform, what are other ways you think people could be engaging with the scene to try and help get it out of this rut we’re facing? 

For sure! So one of the main things we hope to touch on initially is promoting and events. We’re launching our party series that’s going to happen on Nov 30th in London at Ormside Projects alongside a blog series where we discuss all of the parties that shaped us in our youth.

One of the main differences I feel within the events landscape nowadays is that punters only go out depending on the headliner/line up. When I was going out in my youth, it was always about the promoter and the event. Majority of the time, I didn’t know who the fek was playing. I just trusted the event, and knew that it was always going to be a sick crowd and music there. This therefore allowed promoters to book based on their curation (not who will sell tickets). I really wish we could go back to this format. So we’re hoping that by telling the stories of these events that shaped us and why we loved them so much, it’ll encourage the next gen of kids to do the same. 

Do you have a specific approach to the platform when it comes to selecting artists you want to interview or spotlight? 

Nope! If we think you’re sick or you have something important to say, we’re interested. It’s still in its infancy so maybe we’ll develop more of a refined way to select with time but for now, we’re just grateful if anyone wants to chat with us, ha!

We’d definitely like to interview not just artists on the blog but people from all areas like the bookers, sound engineers, venue owners etc and hopefully help shine a light on those areas of the industry too. And we’d like people to talk about their specific scenes and communities (possibly outside of the key cities) as there’s always amazing things happening right on your doorstep but might not be aware of it.

Who or what are you recommending to people at the moment? 

Music wise? Hmmm, the new ‘Dengue Dengue Dengue’ record out on Club Romantico goes sooooo hard.

Book wise? I just started ‘Dance Your Way Home’. I’m only at the beginning so can’t give a full synopsis but it’s a super interesting look at important dancefloor moments that have shaped our scene.

TV wise? Desperate Housewives!!! Cannot believe i’ve slept on this for so long lolol

How does Drifting fit into your wider artistic narrative? What does it bring to the world of Surusinghe that you haven’t been able to do via your sets and productions?  

Hahah I always struggle to describe what my ‘narrative’ is. But I guess when I think about what motivates/excites me sonically, it’s always interesting and unique percussive elements or rhythms. I can usually tell within a few seconds of hearing a track whether I like it or not but a lot of the music I like isn’t necessarily right for my sets. I guess Drifting allows me to explore those worlds but also just build a community of people who like the same shit as me. I could probably spend 23.5 hours of the day talking about music and if you’ve been stuck at an afters with me, you’ve probably seen me do it (lol) so I’m just grateful that this will allow me to continue exploring the art form I love with other people who’d like to. 

What drew you to Substack as a platform for Drifting to exist on? 

Definitely the comments/reply section. We really want Drifting to be an open forum where people can provide thoughts/feelings and suggestions so that’s what was most appealing about Substack for us. 

What other newsletters are you reading at the moment? 

Always Untitled 909!!! As I mentioned to you, you were a big reason why Substack came to our attention as you were doing it was before it was ‘cool’ lolol. Tropical Waste is another big fav of ours as well! We’re actually partnering up with them for our first party that’s happening at Ormside so we’re super hyped to merge our blog worlds hah. And then of course the classics like Phillip Sherburne’s Futurism Restated, Shawn Reynaldo’s First Floor or Perfectly Imperfect are go to’s 🙂 I know Cali’s fav is Herb Sundays.

Now to your DJ sets since you’ll be playing for Four Tet’s curation of The Hydra this weekend. You’ve mentioned in a previous interview that you started producing because it was a way for you to engage with music creatively without the pressure and anxieties that come with DJing. It was a few years ago now that you said that, do you still feel this way about DJing? Have you found any routines or rituals that help you overcome the anxiety before playing? 

Ahh I’m not sure if my anxiety will ever really go but it has admittedly gotten a lot easier. I feel more confident with my skill set behind the decks due to the frequency I get to play but I definitely get nervous before every set. 

I still plan the trajectory and key tracks for my sets the majority of the time which probably helps with the nerves the most. 

TBH, the sets I get most terrified of are the sets where I feel like I need to play something different to what I’d normally do. When I’m playing to ‘freshers’ crowds, or rooms filled with people who’d rather hear a UKG/speed garage set and instead are stuck with me hahaha – these are the ones that stress me out the most. I’m getting better at sticking to my guns and playing what represents me, but it does keep me up the night before when i’m like “fuck… should i just play the hits and keep em’ happy?”

Is there a particular sound or scene you’re obsessed with at the moment and has in turn influenced your recent DJ sets? 

For sure! Obviously in the last few years I’ve taken so much inspiration from the Latin electronic scene and had the absolute pleasure of playing with artists like Bitter Babe and DJ Python. It’s definitely the rhythmic patterns and unique grooves that hook me in and I’ve found the different genres being pushed out of there so exciting and addictive. I think genres like Dembow and Latin Bass work really nicely alongside some of the Hard Drum and more Dubstep/Bass stuff I play. 

Alongside this though, I’m such a sucker for my Naarm roots which are all proggy trance. DJs like Roza Terenzi, In2stellar and Spray are such experts at this sound which I find sooo addictive to listen to. I try to incorporate as much of it as I can in my sets but I do realise sometimes I can be way too indulgent with changing genres and am probably giving the poor punters whip lash lol.

What is your approach to planning a DJ set versus your residency on Rinse FM? 

Omg so different. My DJ sets are all about the event/promoter and crowd (and maybe if I’m on my period or not hahah). 

My Rinse sets are much more about the exact mood I’m in that day or what new music I’ve downloaded but won’t fit into my sets. I’ve also had the pleasure to have so many wonderful guests that show me so much amazing, sick new music.

When do you feel the most creatively inspired? 

Lol if only i knew the answer to that!! Honestly I can never call it. Taking time off drinking/partying definitely helps but yeh -big sigh- I can really never predict when is going to be a good day or bad.

Did you always envision yourself following a creative path? What’s your earliest memory linked to creativity?

Sort of I guess! I never saw myself really working in another field. I was really committed to Ballet when I was growing up and then from about 16/17 I started working at festivals. I then studied music and uni and got a job in an electronic booking agency from 19 and haven’t really thought about anything other than that since?

I definitely didn’t see myself becoming a DJ though. It was never really my goal. It was really just about working within music and being surrounded by it.

What are you most excited about at the moment?

DRIFTING!! Heheh and my upcoming Australia tour! I get to live at my mum’s house for a month and a half and we’re going to drink G&T’s in her backyard and watch Gilmore Girls together and i canneee fookin wait.

You can catch Surusinghe at The Hydra x EYOE present: Four Tet curates at Drumsheds on the 2nd November – buy tickets here.