Johnny: 2025 was pretty big for you, you did a tour with SOVBLKPSSY. I want to know more about how you approach collaborations?

Rydeen: There's lots of people’s work that I love and admire, and I think collaborating with someone is like joining your worlds together. You’re making something that neither of you can do on your own, for me and SOVBLKPSSY, it’s not only making tracks together, but it’s also DJing together, touring, etc. There’s not a single outcome, and it’s very ongoing … working with someone is also learning from them.

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Johnny: Who do you like and admire, what is exciting to you at the moment?

Rydeen: At the moment for dance music, most of what I’m interested in or make or DJ is around different types of regional club music. So US regional stuff, like Baltimore club, Jersey club, or Chicago footwork, but including tracks from all over, like grime from E3 London or gqom from Durban.

I think that contemporary club music has a lot of influence from regional scenes, and at the moment I’m interested in trying to make music and DJ that is reflective of where I am; the people that are in the room when I’m DJing, and the place I am when I’m making music, so I guess trying to figure out a regional club sound that is specific to me and where I live.

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Johnny: Tell me about the lineups that you’ve put together for your 77 residency; why you chose them, and why they’re special to you?

Rydeen: I guess because it’s a Mardi Gras event, as a historical event in this city, rather than an official Mardi Gras event, the intention was to think about Club 77 and how it was one of the first spaces that [Club] Kooky ever existed in – which was one of the first queer events in the city I ever attended in this city.

It’s been a space for queer parties for a long time, like way back in the ‘90s, and I was trying to think about what contemporary version of that would be now. There’s people who are from this city, who are more emerging artists, and people from different queer scenes from overseas and other states who I think are significant and really talented, so I was trying to bring all those things together and do programming that is intergenerational in some way. 

It’s not necessarily a super specific aesthetic or genre … which I feel like is the reality for a lot of queer parties I participate or play in, it’s linked by context.

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Johnny: What was your first time at Kooky like?

Ry: So my first time at Kooky was definitely not at 77, as it had moved into different spaces when I caught the tail-end of Kooky before it finished. 

My first experience there, I think it was my one of first experiences in an intergenerational queer space. There were so many older queers that I had never met before, and in my life up until that point would have never had an interaction with – that was the most striking thing about it.

The people I met … some of those people who are much older than me are very close friends, that was one of the big things about Kooky for me.

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Johnny: It feels like it’s been tough with places like The Bearded Tit closing down – how do you feel about queer club spaces in this city?

Ry: I think there is a gap at the moment when it comes to queer parties, historically in this city there were these like, really, really big queer events that went across different scenes, and had different age groups, backgrounds, and I feel like it’s not much of a thing anymore – it feels a lot more segmented.

But I think that shit can happen again, people just need to step up and run it. Run club nights, run warehouse parties, like I think it can run in lots of different ways. It’s just hard because the price of running events in this city is really, really expensive, like rent is fucking expensive. People are trying to get by, not trying to throw money at a club night they may not make money from.

I think there’s real potential though, there’s a lot of younger DJs and organisers, and I’m grateful to know them and work with them – and some of those people are playing during the residency. 

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Johnny: What’s coming up for you in 2026?

Rydeen: Me and SOVBLKPSSY will have an EP out in the next month or two, and then we have a lot of music in the works, hopefully we’ll have two records out this year. And I have solo club tracks coming out every few months, so probably one or two releases of that as well.

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