Live Stream 909originals catches up with Wehbba
Written by rhythm86 on February 4, 2025
He’s also an in-demand collaborator – working with the likes of Stephan Bodzin, Joseph Capriati, ANNA, Sam Paganini, Scuba, Victor Ruiz, Christian Smith, John Digweed and others – and remixer, and performs regularly at some of the world’s biggest festivals and club nights, including Awakenings, Sonar, Tomorrowland, Ultra and The Warehouse Project. Elsewhere, his hardware-only Live Station project is set to return this year, having been on hiatus for much of 2024 due to his work on HIFN.
His latest release on HIFN is a two-track EP entitled ‘E’, which as you might have guessed, is a tribute to memorable nights on the dancefloor. Featuring two high-intensity tracks, Enigma and Euforia, the EP sees the Sâo Paulo native ask the question, ‘Did I go too hard, did I get too high, baby tell me was it real or did I lose my mind…?’ You can download/stream it here.
909originals caught up with him.
Hi Wehbba, thanks for talking to us. Let’s start by talking about the new EP, the title of which – and accompanying artwork – would indicate to us that it’s a celebration of your rave days? What’s the theme behind it?
My rave days are still ongoing though, ha ha. The new EP is kind of a final chapter that started in 2024 when I focused on a more high-energy, melodic ravey sound – a tribute to my early days as an indulgent raver, featuring old school trance sounds, but with a futuristic aesthetic twist.
If you can read between the lines, the words on the EP’s ‘wordscape’ will tell you everything you need to know, but I invite you to try and find the meaning that resonates the most with you, and to then re-listen to the tracks with a new perspective – should be an interesting experiment!
The lyrics reference a sense of self-doubt or self-awareness – “Did I go too hard, did I get too high…” Does that relate to any specific experiences in your life?
That refers to many experiences in my life, being a night out, or a studio session, or a relationship. It has applied to many situations and seems to be a recurring topic. By writing that, I wonder how many people can relate to it also…
When producing, do you tend to start with a concept and then build the track around that, or does the music shape the narrative as you go?
I tend to work based on a set of core values and focus a lot on my artistic vision, so it leads to being consistent in how my tracks usually work out. That allows me to create projects with different concepts, and group different pieces together to fit each of those concepts, even if they’d been written in completely different times.
This was the case with this release, both tracks were done more than a year apart, but still fit the concept I wanted to portray with E.
You opted to blend your own voice with AI-generated voices on the EP. In what ways are you utilising AI creatively as part of your production process?
I personally only use AI for voice manipulation. I find it’s a breakthrough application of this kind of technology and opens up unbelievable possibilities for sound design.
I can perform everything myself and alter the voice to completely random models I can train with any sources I can think of, and the results always blow me away.
A few tools I use on my productions also make use of AI technology, such as Synplant from Sonic Charge and Kick 3 from Sonic Academy – they’re great examples of how it can be applied in a creative, conscious and legitimate way to enhance the artist’s work, rather than trying to replace it in any way.
You’re approximately one year on from the launch of HIFN. It has been described as more of a multi-disciplinary project than a label. How is that vision coming together?
My goal is that HIFN becomes perceived as an immersive cultural experience, rather than a record label. It’s a lot of work and requires a lot of my energy to keep it going in the right direction, so I do take my time to make the right decisions for each new project.
2025 will be a lot busier, as I have solidified a lot of the goals I have for the platform, and having all sides of it already running – such as the community, events and label – enables me to just focus on the output, rather than research and development, which was the main focus in 2024, for the launch period.
Since it’s been a one-man operation until now, it does take some time to integrate everything, but I have plans to expand the team this year, which should make things a lot more fluid.
What aspects of the HIFN project are you particularly proud of – and what aspects of it have received the best feedback?
I am proud of the whole thing of course – it’s my baby after all – and it’s a culmination of my intentions and experience being an artist for more than two decades. The people that had the chance to attend the release events live were able to experience everything the platform is about, and I have received amazing feedback from both press and fans from those.
But of course, my fanbase is built from mostly techno lovers, and the music is the driving force of the platform, being played by people like Carl Cox, Adam Beyer, Amelie Lens, ANNA and a huge list of amazing artists right from the beginning, that’s really gratifying for me.
We know you’re a big fan of classic trance, and you recently had the chance to work with Push. How did that collaboration come together?
I forgot exactly how we got in touch with each other, but it turns out we were both mutual fans of each other’s music – him obviously being a huge influence for me from my very early days as an electronic music lover – and the talk of a collab came up.
It was a very smooth process, we did it remotely, each sent an idea to the other, and we kept exchanging projects back and forth over a few months, until we felt we had a good package for a release. We tried and refined both tracks quite a lot before sending them out to Eli Brown to release on his label Arcane.
Are there any other classic producers from your rave days that you’d love to work with?
There’s a long list of people I’d love to work with from that time, but I like to leave collabs to chance, whenever I meet someone in person or start chatting on the internet for whatever reason, it usually makes things flow a lot more naturally during the collab.
I am currently working on something with BK, who was also a big influence for me from that same period. I’m really excited about it, as he’s still very active and in top form lately!
We understand you have more Live Station sets planned for this year. How are you evolving the Live Station project?
I had to put the Live Station on hold in 2024 due to the development of my HIFN platform, which took a lot of time and effort, but hopefully things will be different in 2025. I have been playing around with the setup and optimising everything to be able to perform all of the new material I have, which is a lot.
That meant changing the way I had everything laid out on the machines, how I had to prepare the stems and samples, in order to fit in the limited memory space from the sampler and drum machine, so it will most likely feel like a whole new show.
What piece (or pieces) of equipment are key to the Live Station project, and why?
The Elektron Octatrack is the brain of the whole thing and I’ve pretty much laid it all out based on it, so it’s pretty essential to how I perform and sequence everything, it’s where the stems are coming from and a lot of the original sequences are stored, and then sent to the synths to be manipulated live.
The Roland TR-8S is also pretty essential to the rig, as it’s the drum machine that makes me feel the most comfortable while sequencing drums live, as well as being able to sound as loud and punchy as a mastered track when I run it through the Model 1.
You’ve spoken in the past about the ‘spiritual’ aspect of deconstructing sounds. How has this influenced your personal growth and artistic outlook over the years?
I think this is something that permeates everything I do. Finding the essence of things and being able to experience anything as it is, in my own way, keeps inspiring me and pushing me forward.
I feel that it’s a great way to build an artistic vision and in turn develop a sense of awareness that helps me stay on track, and building HIFN takes that a step further, exploring different art forms to get even deeper into the essence of what each element is.
The new EP references doves, snowballs, Playboys, Rolex, Audi, Mitsubishi etc – if you know, you know, ha ha. Any particular favourites from over the years?
Loves the doves. 
Wehbba – E is out now on HIFN and can be downloaded/streamed here. Photo by Max Thijssen.
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