It is meant to be simple

A photo of the Great Clock of Westminster showing two o'clock

Q&A with Socool Thrilled to be able to share some thoughts with the Canadian producer and DJ! Brian Roach Oct 23, 2026 Very pleased to have made a connection with the Vancouver, British Columbia based electronic musician who records as Socool (whose birth name is Emily Sobool, and I’m guessing the alias must’ve been an “ahhh” moment when it occurred to her!) and whose tracks run the gamut of influences from, per her Bandcamp bio “atmos jungle, downtempo, trip hop, ambient, and jazz.” And it’s true, you can hear all of that in her productions. I discovered Emily from her 2nd release, To the Nines from 2025. I was blown away in particular by the bass, so well recorded, so “tasty” as they say, and it really elevates the tracks! An introduction by mutual friend CommsBreakdown led to my invite to her to answer some questions, and I’m very pleased that she agreed. So, let me stop here and invite the reader to enter the world of Socool! Q. What were your first influences? And what was the first electronic music album/track/artist you loved? A. This question leads me to reflect on how electronic music reached me in a small town in British Columbia and that was through movie soundtracks, MuchMusic (the Canadian answer to MTV), and my school of dance. I remember when we had a new choreographer join our school from New York and she brought all these fresh ideas and best of all, some amazing musical selections. I remember the advanced group had a routine to ‘Quadrophonia’ by Quadrophonia and I absolutely loved that one. As for movie soundtracks, Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet brought me to Nellee Hooper’s trip-hop mix of Radiohead’s ‘Talk Show Host’ and I was completely obsessed with that track. How foundational that one is for me as an influence can’t really be overstated. MuchMusic’s ‘r U receiving’ electronic music program issued a compilation in 1997 featuring music by Portishead, Lamb, DJ Shadow, Roni Size / Reprazent, The Chemical Brothers, The Orb, Orbital, Goldie vs Rabbit In The Moon and the Prodigy. I played that CD a lot! Q. What was the first piece of software/hardware you owned? Do you still have it and use it? A. When I first started learning piano, I was using a Yamaha Portasound PSS-21. I liked playing around with the various sounds and rhythms it came preloaded with, and I still have it even after all these years. I also had a Coldcut release, I don’t remember exactly what it was but I think I recall there being a way to play around with the sounds and visuals of Atomic Moog and remix them on a demo version of VJamm on a CD-ROM or something like that, that was fun. Q. Do you hope to make a living from this? A. I like being alive and having this in my life :) Q. Do you DJ as well as produce tracks? Preference? A. I do DJ, yes! My preference is to produce, absolutely no question about that. DJing is fun though. A long time ago, before I got more seriously into producing, my friends and I had a regular Saturday night radio show on CiTR 101.9fm called ‘Shadow Jugglers’ and we would mix records live on air. I also played at various restaurants, clubs, lounges and music festivals in British Columbia. These days, I have the honour of playing on the beach stage next to the beautiful Similkameen River at the Revel Music Festival and I look forward to it every summer. My Revel Mix from this year includes the CommsBreakdown remix of ‘Passage,’ which has just been released as part of To the Nines Remixed, [released Sept. 18] featuring 10 re-imaginings of tracks from my To the Nines album by some wonderfully talented music friends.