Beatportal Exclusive: Cristoph goes deep on concept album Life Through A Different Lens

Hot off the release of DJ and producer Cristoph’s explorative album Life Through A Different Lens, we put the mic to the Newcastle native to hear in his own words how the final masterpiece came to be.

Please introduce Life Through A Different Lens, your new artist album out on your own COS Recordings label.

So, I describe the album more as a conceptual album project than a studio album. It was made to accompany the open till close tour. I've already done an open-until-closed tour which was really good. I loved every second of it. So I wanted to level up the experience and connect some music to it, and up the visual production of the shows. The album essentially mirrors one of these open-until-close DJ sets, capturing what happens across a 7-8 hour set and putting it into one and a half hours. I sat there and thought about all the subgenres and the journey that I take people on, you know, starting a bit slow, bit downtempo, a bit deeper and coming through the house section into a bit more ever techier section into vocals. Then I'll bring it back down. So I had to write records for each of these moments and have them move in key for a seamless flow.

There’s a definite tone experimentation to the album. ‘String Thing’ is the first single we’ve heard from you that delves into disco territory, sampling ‘Don’t You Want My Love’ by Debbie Jacobs. What drew you to use this track?

I've always wanted to start sampling old disco tracks. It's just finding the correct sample. It's very time-consuming and I honestly stumbled across this one just on the off chance of just going through YouTube one day messing around.

I started looping it and I found a bit of a different area to what a couple of other producers had used and I ran it through an effect on one of my plugins on Ableton and it just struck something different. It was just kind of jarring and I knew this was something I should keep working on to get it to final record. Luckily enough it worked out and made the album.

Have you played many of the album tracks live already? If so which ones, and what have the reactions been like? Any early fan favourites?

‘String Thing’ is one that I think is like people are really into since it released because it's just something different from me, you know. It's like a nod to the old housey type of version of my sound, my earlier stuff and people are now diving back into that sound and a bit of my back catalogue which is great to see.

‘Where Do We Go’ seems to be the big fan favourite at this moment in time. It's just got that hook of a vocal where it's just sticking in everybody's minds and it's got those big snares and the big kick drum where it's really standing out in among sets. When I start playing a bit more of the warehouse sound, the likes of ‘Raise The Alarm,’ ‘Cicada’ and even ‘Redwood’ with Weska, they’ve all gone down well.

How hands-on are you in the A&R process for COS Recordings? What are the rewards and challenges in this role?

I’m 100% in on the label. Everything is listened to and chosen to be signed by myself for the label. I've got people who support running the label when it comes down to scheduling and like delivering the tracks to the DSPs and stuff because it's just very time-consuming. But anything, where it comes to deciding what is coming out on the label and who we sign, is my call.

I love the fact that I can give someone a chance to get some music out, you know. I know what writing a record and releasing it out into the means to someone.

I've always wanted to do my own label, but I needed to build myself a little bit bigger to start creating a platform for us to release on because I don't want someone delivering their record to me and it not getting the best shot at promotion. I've signed music with labels in the past where I've probably had about 3 sales or something like that and I don't want that happening to somebody else. I want them to help them build their career.

If you unearth someone completely brand new, and then people start to join the hype of their record, or start following their career, it’s so rewarding to see them get the recognition that I fully believe that they deserve. That's exactly what the label is about. I want some kind of more well-known artist on there, but I also want it to be a platform to really help people push through. There's far too many talented people out there who aren't getting discovered.

What’s the long-term vision for COS Recordings?

My long-term vision is obviously to keep growing, to make it more of a platform for people to release on, away from me. I'm still going to be releasing on the label, but I want to open it up more to other producers but not oversaturate. I do look at other labels and think the schedules are a bit much. If you’re releasing every week, you're not giving an artist enough chance for that record to roll on and find its audience. I find the music is getting a little bit too disposable nowadays like it's today's news is tomorrow's fish and chip paper type of thing. I just want people to get good exposure, good promo, have a good build-up to the release and you know, get it pushed out properly for the best shot at resonating with the right people.

We also hosted our first label party during Miami Music Week just last month and that’s something I want to build on. Bringing together DJ/producers who fit the sound and vision.

Your O2C Tour is headed for Canada and the USA, what’s in store for fans? And how do you prepare for O2C sets?

So about three weeks out, I start going through all my music and start seeing what I have and putting it into a few different sections. I know some artists who sit there and really, really pull it all apart and have so many different folders of music. That's their way of doing things. Mine’s is a little bit simpler, I just I don't really go in overthink. I'll start off exactly just how I'm feeling at that moment. It's all about reading the crowd and going from there. I like holding them a bit and then kind of just drop something to get them going and then you take a bat down and just honestly just depends exactly how I'm feeling.

But yeah, what can people expect?

What can they expect? I mean, it's that whole cliche of a journey but it really is when you play across six or seven hours. It's not going to be slammed out, peak time music from start to finish. It’s going to be going up and down and vocals here and there.

There are certain shows on the list where there's going to be new visual production which I want to enhance the experience a bit more.

Chicago is one stop on the tour, famous for its House music roots which you’ve long been inspired by, what influence has this city in particular had on you as an artist?

I mean living there and getting a chance to go out and seeing how many clubs are there and how many international DJs travel through, but not only international, how many kids actually DJ there is just phenomenal. Like the kind of people that I know and I've met through going out and I think nearly every single one of them DJs. The city is just always vibing.

Everybody's there smiling and just enjoying life and the contrast from the winter to the cold, it's all just super, super inspiring for someone who looks around and tries to get inspiration from daily life.

If you could change one thing about the electronic music industry today, what would it be and why?

This is a difficult question, you know, because when thinking of change, I always think ‘is there something wrong with it?’ I think probably how disposable music actually is.

You can't help it because there's so much coming out and there's so many labels and things like that but it’s here today and gone tomorrow and I just don't agree with it like I used to love looking at Miami and seeing what was the next big record for the whole of the year. Now, whatever's getting played in Miami's probably forgotten about before even IMS starts.

So probably I just miss having those records I carry through for the summer.

I don't know about the rest of it. I can sit here and be like, oh, like the whole phone thing. And everybody's about that but I’ve attempted to keep out of those conversations because you can't say something which isn’t upsetting anybody else, and I'm just not really about that. If somebody wants to get the phone out. Granted, I don't think they should stand there for the whole entire night and record every last thing but if that's what they want to end up doing, who am I to judge what the actually want to do? If it puts a smile on their face and that's all that we want to do at the end of the day, right? To make people go away after having had a good time. Life can be tough at times I just want people to come in and have a good time and they pick up reality on another day.

What’s the last track you added to your USB?

One I've literally just made today in the studio. It's called ‘Disco Juice’ at this moment in time because it's a sample of a track called ‘Disco’ from the 70s.

To the tune of one of your album tracks ‘Where Do We Go From Here,’ what’s in store for summer 2025?

Just climbing the ladder step by step. That's exactly the way I want my career to go.

I want to understand exactly what every move I'm making is doing to help me go in the right direction. I just want to keep on releasing good, steady music that people enjoy. I want to grow the label and do a steady amount of gigs under the COS brand.

I want to keep playing around the world and try and keep on spreading what Cristoph and Consequences of Society Recordings is all about. I’ve got some set goals, which I've got with my dad and my brother, which I set with them and the family and everybody like that and it’s just about slowly but surely climbing that ladder to reach those goals. 2025 is just another year of growth, I hope.

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