Futuristic Digital: Doshy on Tour

Originally hailing from Augsburg, Germany, Doshy (known to his mother as Dominik Schilling) is currently one of the leading electronic music producers in Berlin and boss of record label Robox Neotech. Known for his sci-fi inspired creations that have been termed ‘extra-terrestrial future beats’, this month he swings through Shanghai headlining an extensive Asian tour organised by The Antidote. TALK caught up with him during a break from making future-art in his home studio to chat about his music, the Berlin scene and his experience as one of the few Western artists to tour Myanmar.

How would you describe your sound?

I’d call it colourful love songs for robots or a trip on a flying Harley Davidson in the year 2198.

Bang… and we are off! Your music sounds like a bizarre futuristic merging of hip-hop, dub step and other electronic. Is this the music of tomorrow?

I love melding electronic styles of various tempos together to try to make them sound really futuristic and fresh, but this is a really hard question. I think when producers combine their music with science fictional ideas and images it will inevitably end up sounding futuristic, but not necessarily forever. I remember Detroit techno synths sounding really fresh in 1997, but by 2002 they sounded very outdated. Yet, nowadays they are back in style and being heavily sampled. It’s a continuous cycle – up and down – as always. I try to develop my skills and samples to get contemporary results out of my music. To succeed as a producer you need to have the right idea with the right sounds at the right time, and those lucky few will be the ones who create the future of music.

What inspires you?

Patience. I've tried so many things to find potential inspiration. But if there is one thing I have learned in all my years of making music it is that inspiration needs to find me, not the other way around. However, there are several things that can help. I keep myself up-to-date with music and am constantly on the look-out for prospective sampling sources from other music or movies. Currently, I am very inspired by soundtracks from Italian horror movies from the 1970s and '80s.

I hear you are collaborating with Shanghai-based artists. Do you usually work alone?

[Uprooted Sunshine’s] Esia and Didijelirum are super dope MCs and I’m really happy to work with them. I actually love working together with other artists. I did a recent collaboration with Robot Koch on his new LP of which I am very proud. I have also given some thought to creating a band project in the near future. That being said, I still love to come up with ideas and compose tracks on my own, and this will never change.

How is Berlin? Does it deserve the international hype of being one of the new global hotbeds of creativity?

I’m really glad I decided to move to Berlin five years ago. The city is full of art and music. I live in the borough of Neukölln which is one the most diverse and developing areas. It has lots of cheap bars and clubs; it’s a very punk atmosphere. Berlin is a great place to balance concentrating on getting work done while being connected to the whole world at the same time. I love that. It’s also one of those places where you can interact with world famous artists, engage in dialogue and always find interesting collaborations with people who have moved there from all over the world. To me, Berlin doesn’t feel like a German city it has something more unique – it’s free and open-minded.