IN CONVERSATION WITH SAINT VELEZ

Interview by Samo Šajn

Saint Velez spent the better part of a decade developing his sound in the warehouses of Bushwick and Bed Stuy before his sophomore album "Truth Be Told" made clear how far that patience had taken him. Released on his own Illegal Rhythm imprint, the record is rooted in a vivid dream that confronted him with an uncomfortable truth about his own life and the life of someone close to him. It is a personal record, though not an overexplained one. He sat with us to talk about what the dream revealed, what he chose to leave in, and why the phrase that became the album's title came from an argument he lost.

You based an entire album on a dream. At what point did you realize the dream wasn't just interesting but necessary?

Interesting way of wording that; I love it. If I had to add a sense of necessity to the album, the purpose of the dream was to capture an image of where I am in life right now. In its full conception, the story of the dream says a lot about me at this point in my life, which I think is pivotal. If I’m able to capture that in memory, then that’s as essential as it gets. I think it’s important to add some sentimental influence from your history if it’s not just hit after hit.

A lot of techno is about erasure of the self. This record seems to do the opposite. Was that a conscious choice or did it scare you when you realized what you were making?

There’s an even amount of erasure and exposure in it. At one point, the album had a lot more context and symbolism tied directly to the dream, but I started cutting those pieces because it felt too heavy-handed and started taking away from the music. It cheapened the feeling a bit. So the choice became conscious: reveal enough for the album to feel personal, but hide enough for people to still experience it as music first.

I don’t think I’ll ever explain the full theme publicly. I’d rather leave bits and pieces out there. For me, it works like a time capsule — something I can come back to years from now and unlock that specific wave of emotions and memories.

You've spent a decade building something underground that most people will never see. What do you think that kind of invisibility does to a person?

Well, I mean, it’s about learning the business and having patience. Doing gigs and understanding how to flourish in a community, as well as give back. Illegal Rhythm wasn’t created just to be another record label, but to fill a void the city had. I always tried to stay patient with decision-making and not jump on fads that would just cause a flash in the pan.

Now I know how to create something that nobody else is doing. You learn, you mature, you get annoyed — a decade is a long time — but your precision when you execute something becomes unlike anyone else’s because you’ve seen where things work and where they fail.

"Authority" swings the entire energy of the record. When you finished it, did you know immediately it was the most important thing there?

I think it worked out so well. When we finished about 15 or 16 tracks, I knew “Authority” was going to be something else entirely. We needed to make sure the track listing made sense and that the album flowed properly with those more poignant moments. The way we positioned “Authority” on the album — that’s when I realized how powerful it was. With how strong the track is and how much it defines the entry point into the album… muah

Brooklyn gets invoked constantly as shorthand for authenticity. What does it actually mean to you versus what people project onto it?

I don’t think Brooklyn has to mean one specific thing to anyone. The whole “real techno versus fake techno” conversation gets tiring because everyone can find a way to call something inauthentic.

What matters more to me is whether the work resonates and whether it pushes something forward. I think the work I’ve done over the last two years has been some of the most cutting-edge work coming out of Brooklyn — not just because of the music, but because of the whole ecosystem around it. Illegal Rhythm has become an outlet where artists can go further with their marketing, concepts, visuals, releases, and culture. It’s not just “put out a track and move on.” It’s the whole nine yards.

Someone can still look at that and say, “That’s not real Brooklyn,” but who cares? Anyone genuinely trying to push the needle should be past that conversation. As long as you’re making the effort to push things forward, you don’t have to worry about authenticity.

You named the album Truth Be Told. What's the lie you were living before you made it?

I love that that’s your interpretation. It tells me the title doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. That’s slightly off from what it means to me, since it wasn’t intended in that context. Obviously, I hope everyone draws their own conclusions before reading this next tidbit, and hopefully it means something different to everyone.

So, in the context of the dream, it was actually a jab back at me. Someone in the dream started getting very snippy with me while a conversation was becoming heated and uncomfortable. After they said something nasty, I turned to them and replied, “What a way with words.”

They snapped back with, “Yeah, well, truth be told.”

And it really shut me up. They completely got me with that line, to the point where I was impressed by the phrasing. It took me a while to really decipher why it felt so poignant in the dream, but I came to interpret it as a beautiful way of being defiant in your stance. It was respectful through sharpness and clarity over comfort.

If someone listens to this record and still doesn't really know you, what did they miss?

I don’t know how to answer that in a definitive way, because the album isn’t meant to be a full projection of who I am. It captures a specific moment in my life and ties together how I sound, where I was mentally, and what the dream showed me. A lot of the more sentimental clips and details were removed because I still wanted the record to stand on its own musically, rather than become overexplained.

So if someone listens and still doesn’t fully know me, I don’t think they necessarily missed the point. The subjectivity is part of it. The album gives you pieces of me, but not the whole picture.