Sapphist Eye: Club Culture, Protest, and the Politics of Feeling
- Undrtone Blog
- Jul 8
- 4 min read
Paris-based producer and DJ Sapphist Eye is part of a new wave of queer artists turning electronic music into something more than just a soundtrack for the night. Her latest EP, ‘Mutate+Back’, released 4 July on Lumière Noire, doesn’t just offer four tracks of woozy, shape-shifting club music. It’s a study in feeling, protest, identity and the power of collective space. Buy/stream the EP via your preferred platform here: https://lumierenoire.lnk.to/MutateBack
Her journey started, fittingly, on the dancefloor.
“I think I got this feeling at a La Kidnapping party in 2016,” she says. “It was one of the first lesbian parties I went to. The fact that I was able to find what was to become my community there helped me, first of all, on a personal level by helping me to discover myself, assert myself and feel proud.”
Jen Cardini played that night. It was a turning point. A year later, Sapphist Eye stepped behind the decks herself, playing her first public set at a Kidnapping event thanks to organiser Sophie Morello. Around the same time, she started going to the Wet For Me parties by the lesbian collective Barbi(e)turix, which deepened her connection to club culture. In 2023, her track ‘Exist Everywhere’ was selected for the second Barbi(e)turix compilation. That moment mattered.
“It was an important moment that gave me visibility,” she says. “I was very proud to be part of it. The lesbian and queer communities made me want to make electronic music, so it made total sense to release something through them.”
That early encouragement led to further releases on Les Disques du Lobby and now her debut solo EP for Lumière Noire. The title track ‘Mutate+Back’ isn’t just a name, it’s a reflection of her sound. Sapphist Eye’s music bends and flexes. It carries weight, but never feels stuck. Some moments are dreamy and delicate. Others are raw, abrasive, even disorienting.
“I have different influences, I don’t always listen to the same music depending on the period, and I don’t try to reproduce a specific sound,” she explains. “I’m more looking for a particular atmosphere – with depth first of all, but also variations, and emotions that will often be darker and punchier, but sometimes with more colourful layers depending on the mood I’m in.”
Vocal work is central to her production. “Whether it’s reworked samples or my own voice, it’s always there. I think it’s the most original element there is.”
The opening track, ‘Hanging In A Path’, sets the tone. It swirls with glitchy textures, pitched-up vocal fragments and strange sonic detours. “I think I was looking for tension,” she says. “With a slightly dark and sexy side too, perhaps. The image I had in mind was a person walking along a path, with a new element of tension at every turn – an adventure, something to face.”
On ‘Whole Anger’, Sapphist Eye draws a direct link between club music and political resistance. The track features real protest chants she recorded during a women’s rights demonstration in Paris on 8 March 2023.
“I’ve always had a very strong feeling about singing and shouting at demonstrations,” she says. “We occupy the street with our presence and our voices. I recorded these songs, initially with the idea of just listening to them again. Then I thought I should incorporate them into one of my songs, because music can also be political. Depending on the effect it has on someone, it can make them want to think or act. That felt important.”
The result is a powerful track that moves between cavernous percussion and a wall of human noise, eventually breaking into a sleek, stripped-back electro groove. It captures the energy of the crowd but reframes it into something deeply personal.
That emotional core runs through everything she does.
“I always want to receive and transmit either something hyper-powerful that will come and lift you up, or something very emotional and sensitive – and if possible, both at the same time.”
Outside the studio, Sapphist Eye is part of L’Agence du Lobby, a Paris-based booking agency supporting queer, drag and collective artists. It’s more than just a platform.
“I think it brings out the idea of respect for others, while affirming pride in oneself,” she says. “Music and dance have this cathartic effect. And by taking part in these events and being concerned by these issues, you’re moved. You can feel it. So again, we’re talking about something political, something lived, not just entertainment.”
She’s also a gynaecologist. Yes, really. “It takes organisation, but it can be done,” she says. “Maybe I’ll have a choice to make in a while, even if I’d rather not. We’ll see.”
Right now, she’s focused on the next few steps, a remix, a guest track for a friend, and the long-term goal of building a live set. “That’s going to take a lot of work,” she says. “Maybe in a year’s time I’ll be able to offer something. We’ll see.”
She’s also energised by what’s happening around her in the Paris scene.
“There’s a revival,” she says. “Go Gouine, Dyketopia, With Us, Club Humide, Afro Queer Rising, La Scarlette, all diversifying the community offer to create spaces for the people they’re meant for. And of course the collectives that have been around longer, like Aïe, Barbi(e)turix, Discoquette, La Creole, Ma Soeur.”
Sapphist Eye’s work is a reflection of that movement: messy, political, expressive, grounded in community, and never just one thing. She’s not trying to escape reality with music. She’s trying to reflect it. Feel it. Transform it.
Sapphist Eye
Lumière Noire
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