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Glaswegian Gigolo

Sei A joins the techno major players

It’s been less than a year since Sei A, aka Glasgow’s Andy Graham, dropped his debut album, ‘Editing Shadows’, to critical acclaim but already he’s grown into one of the biggest new names in the larger-than-life world of mutant techno. With the effortless ability to move from soulful and emotive synth-drenched house to dark menacing techno, he also does a great line in his own vocals. So it should come as no surprise that Tiga is one of his biggest fans. 

“Around March I sent out some tracks to Tiga’s label Turbo and they messaged me right away to say they wanted me to do another album for them. It was quite surprising,” he says with typical understatement when we catch up about his recent run of support from high places. 

With an EP of two tracks out on Turbo in November, ‘Lazers’ and ‘Paraphaze’, he’s also joined the ranks of DJ Hell’s iconic International DJ Gigolos with the release of another EP, ‘Chinese Whispers’, out now. A huge, growling monster that features the cut-up vocals of Sara Pickin, it’s backed by the equally brooding ‘My Montage’, and puts Sei A alongside Fischerspooner, Miss Kittin & The Hacker, and Tiga himself, who all launched their careers off the back of Gigolo. 

“I got an e-mail from Henry Stuart, one of the guys from Jet Project, one day to ask if he could put DJ Hell in touch with me. Apparently he’d heard some of my tracks at the Miami Winter Music Conference. They asked for all the stuff I’d done in the last two years — then the next thing, DJ Hell asked me to do an EP.” 

With so much coming up, Droido, Andy’s other alias for what he calls his “madder stuff” is on hold for now.  But fans of these heavier productions needn’t worry.

“I was doing a lot of deep stuff with Sei A, but recently I’ve been making a lot of clubbier tracks for the dancefloor. When I DJ, I prefer playing more ‘going for it’ stuff.” 

Last month saw his own label, Seinan Music, celebrate the anniversary of its first release, with two members of Parisian DJ team Get The Curse, Clement Meyer and Olibusta, releasing its fourth EP. 

“My booking agent is French, so I get booked to play with them a lot in Paris. They’re nice guys and really young as well.”

And with forthcoming remixes of Jet Project versus Duckbeats on Extended Play, Sun Electric and Cortney Tidwell on R&S, and a joint limited vinyl release between Seinan and Milton Jackson’s Dark Energy label, you have a release schedule guaranteed to find a Sei A track somewhere in any self-respecting DJ’s box. Yet it might have never happened. 

“My first record came out in 2003, but then I took a break to study music at college and university. I failed it and that’s when I started getting back into production seriously.” Higher education’s loss is most definitely dance music’s gain.