Black Holes has been one of my favourite labels for electronic music since it first appeared in the shadowy parts of cyberspace. As you get to know a label over the years, you really come to appreciate a consistent vision – across artwork, releases and language. Although the label’s activity has become intermittent, it has never given up on the original concept of making the world a bit more magical. This is an interview with the DJ and producer behind the label, whom you may know as Huffy Fibryyx.
Can you tell us where you are based and what you do?
I’m currently based in Saint Petersburg, Russia. I try to stay busy with all sorts of things, but for me, it’s all about magic. I’m constantly experimenting, trying new things, and making sure I don’t get stuck in one place creatively. Of course, I still have a regular job — just something to survive, really — but besides that, I’ve been teaching DJing for over five years, I study astrology, and I read Tarot really well. I also paint, dance, and make music. One of the most exciting things right now is directing a music video for huffy fibryyx — the track is a rap & drum’n’bass / grime’n’bass fusion we made with Mistwist. It came together completely unexpectedly, like it was just waiting to happen. The video is for a song called “Kurtka Bratana” (means something like “Bro’s Jacket”), and it’s based on true events from 2020, the year I decided to become a cyberwitch.
Back then, I had just gone through a really tough breakup, my computer broke down, and I suddenly felt like there was literally nothing left to do at home. So I just… wandered. On day two I ended up rapping at a dark trap party, hanging out with rappers, then crashing for another day at some random webcam studio. When I was leaving, someone handed me this jacket — super heavy, almost like armour. I wore it through the rain, through the night city, through an OMON [a system of military special police units within the Armed Forces of Russia] raid at a club, helped stop a flood at a friend’s cafe, and even had a full-on mental breakdown. All of it — in this one jacket. “Kurtka Bratana.” It’s still hanging in my apartment like a relic. And now, finally, I’m making the video for it — squeezing it in whenever I can. Life’s been a bit chaotic, but I’m trying to make space for everything.
That’s a surreal story, can’t wait to hear it. The world can be a dark place. Should we confront it, or should we try to create a new kind of reality for ourselves?
I’ve been living in my own reality for a long time, probably since childhood. Of course, my perspicacity sometimes makes me feel very bad, and I’m prone to depression. Sometimes I just don’t have the strength to fight, to promote myself, my meanings, and my ideas. But I want to confront society – I love provocations and scandals. I have a sense of justice. I don’t know why I’m so concerned about society and the world, but I want to live in order to change history, to change the people around me. Living just for myself and my own pleasure isn’t as interesting. That’s why I’m fighting for an imaginary paradise where everyone will become sufficiently open, honest, and aware. I believe in utopias. But reality is sometimes stupid and cruel, starting with the fact that you have to work, and ending with betrayals and deceptions from people.
Yes work and money is the bane of humanity. But utopia is an interesting concept, seeing as it also negates itself – to achieve it means that something new, beyond reach, becomes our new utopia.
Yes, indeed. I constantly encounter the fact that I desire utopia and, like an ouroboros, bite my own tail. But I believe that the restructuring and transfiguration of people and perception is happening now. Very soon we will be different, we already communicate more with memes and emojis than we write long letters. Music, like art, carries a special aura, it is an experience that can be known and shared. Utopias have always attracted me. I grew up on the ruins of a utopia – the dead faith in communism, maybe that’s why I’m drawn to very heavy, sad experiences, horror, and despair. From which I escape into my own worlds, wanting to build collective ones in new and previously unknown ways. My latest vision of utopia is a cyber-village. Consider that for me, you are already in it. In a cyber-village there is no space and time, it is a singular flow of connections built on love and understanding. Something like that. Meta-art solarpunk.
Let’s rewind a bit. When and why did you start the label Black Holes?
The idea for Black Holes was born around 2020. It wasn’t just a label for me; I wanted to create a community where people could freely create and connect. Synchronicities, transgression, quantum physics, and magic – I wanted to embody all of that in Black Holes. Basically, I wanted to create something too weird for this world, haha! My friends Gutkein and Kisikililake supported and helped me at the time. Music and philosophy merged in ecstasy, and we created a manifesto, visuals, and the first mix with interviews that we did with each other:
It still seems so alive and powerful to me – maybe because it’s a reminder of how delusional I can be! I didn’t just want to release mixes from one artist; I wanted to release collective and chaotic art, combining different opinions, visions, and worlds, thereby deconstructing reality. I wanted to mix DJs, not just tracks:
Yeah, I know, I had big ambitions! For the first year, Black Holes really succeeded in being a platform for interactions, experiments, and miracles, and we created unique and charged content. But over time, everything faded. The girls and I scattered to different corners of our lives. My unusual formats and desires didn’t align with the rules of the industry, with new human realities and the expectations of the public. Maybe I was just too ahead of my time – or maybe the world just wasn’t ready for THAT much chaos! So everything kind of folded in on itself, like a dying star. The world is too sick for this right now, let’s be honest.
We first wrote about you in 2021, when you did a record with Gutkein. I feel like you and Diana are the moms of the underground Russian scene – how did you guys meet and were there any other producers who inspired you in the early days?
That’s very nice to hear, I like feeling like a mom. It immediately reminds me of the label Mama Told Ya. They certainly inspire me now.
Diana and I met in a group of friends; she was dating a guy who was very close to my boyfriend. Then I got out of the relationship and started Black Holes, and I invited her to join. That’s how we started getting closer. I wouldn’t say that we were oriented towards anyone specifically; we wanted to do our own thing, to work with our context. But yes, our context at that time was the hard techno scene of St. Petersburg and Moscow, which today has acquired the name bochka. At the same time, the label NYPRA was born, which was created by our now ex-boyfriends. Hee hee.
Hard techno is very patriarchal and harsh, the parties were just as harsh, lasting for several days on drugs. This brought us closer together and made us so tough and merciless. Because of this same thing, we also grew apart. I, to be honest, couldn’t take it anymore and started looking for more tender and masochistic strategies. I still love Diana very much.
At some point, everything became more or less a normal label, where I simply release music that I like and promote artists in whom I see potential. All the dreams flew into a black hole… where else would they go?
I really admire how far and wide your hopes for Black Holes reached. Although you say the original group of friends has scattered, it seems as if you have a new and very productive community around you now? Tell us about the Veneno Club DJ school.
There is a lot of love, madness, and death in Black Holes; under the aegis of the label, people’s destinies quietly changed. Some of the participants have even passed away – yeah, it got dark! I couldn’t not do it; it was the meaning of my existence. I shot videos, edited, made images, took photographs, wrote articles, created clothes, and directed films. It was a necessity, like air, so the question of time didn’t even arise. Later, there were failures when the label was silent for half a year, but it was reborn again – like a zombie! Now I don’t have so much strength and faith, but someday I might return to this freedom and lightness.
Currently, I’m not very involved with Black Holes, I rarely release anything, and I can’t put together a stable team for it. I opened my own small DJ school then and started doing my own events, which were not just parties with music but events that transformed both those present and the invisible quantum world. You’re right, thanks to my activities, a circle of people still forms around me. Many of them are my own students, whom I taught DJing and then took under my wing. In part, all the parties I do now, I do for my students and friends. I met Slavyanka and Godnota in St. Petersburg, and the special atmosphere of modern underground techno influenced us. We hung out together, we liked the same sound, and we did something together – parties or podcasts.
Did you organise events in St. Petersburg mainly? I saw that last year Black Holes had a residency on the radio station M+ST Moscow. In the early days your output was more under the radar so this feels like a more public way of accessing an audience and sharing your musical vision. Is this the future for you?
Yes, back in 2024 we went on tour to Moscow with my students – Anka Kisa and Tvoii Baby (we all live in St. Petersburg). We were invited to the gabber party Galaxydrome and to that radio station. I tried to show the girls real DJ life. Sometimes I reach my goals, sometimes not. I’m not against going commercial, but people don’t always respond to me or make contact. Often they simply refuse or don’t reply. I don’t mind being commercial, I even try it periodically. I don’t think I know how to properly submit applications and broadcast Black Holes in a way that doesn’t repel commercial people. But sometimes it works out. This was one of those rare cases where connections helped organise it.
I don’t currently have enough resources of my own to realise the parties of my dreams – to create a collective community. I love my girls. But I don’t despair, and I think the time will come, because all these rare contacts of understanding, openness, and love are valuable to me, they lead me and guide me. Although I have wanted and tried a thousand times to quit this kind of activity and, for example, focus on my own career. I would dream of touring the world with my girls, a musical and performative showcase of deconstructed techno.
We are all just different entrances into one whole black hole – welcome to the void! And I’m waiting for humanity to cleanse itself of everything human (in the sense of being Oedipally neurotic). Oh no, I guess I’m believing in utopia again! Maybe I should stop… Nah! Now I do a lot in secret, but I still believe and wait to find my community and Black Holes will become a beloved home for me. You can always manage everything if there is a desire, motivation, and enthusiasm. I’m not encountering this much in people anymore – maybe I’m just hanging out with the wrong crowd.
Honestly, it’s all probably my mental issues, because, truthfully, I don’t even always post the content that we produce. Or I do it a year after the release or event. But I’m working on it. Maybe I just need to get a manager…
Speaking of the wrong crowd, I was listening to “Clowns & Clones” by your hiphop alias. Who are the clowns and clones in your life?
Well, ”Clowns & Clones” is really a black humour observation of what I see around me, so it’s not exactly a cheerful song, haha! The reality is, truly interesting subjects and strong personalities are rare. Everyone is either afraid and shy, wants to conform or pretend, act according to templates, and repeat trends. Those are the clones. And then there are the clowns, who know how to question all of this and laugh about it, but in general, they aren’t taken very seriously, so they can’t change much. And yeah, maybe I’m a clown myself these days. The song explores this feeling of being surrounded by these archetypes. It’s like the world is a stage, and everyone is playing a role, but some roles are more authentic than others. It’s a little cynical, but I hope it also makes people think about the roles they play in their own lives.
[Excerpt of lyrics, translated by Anastasia]
”The universe came out of salt
Raised on pain
Yes, I’m in Russia
Born in rot
I was canceled, thrown, dumped,
Bitches
Everywhere are ruins
Viruses, pain and violence
Web zero point two
I am made of this I I I I”
So this is a Slutty Tati track, but recently you changed the name of the project to SnakeEyesGvcci. Is this also a part of the future that you see for yourself?
To be honest, I changed the name somewhat suddenly. For some reason, at that moment, I wanted to move away from the “provocative” name and take something more ‘rapper-esque’. SnakeEyesGvcci was born in collaboration with another producer, and the tracks from the latest album Medieval Bitch are his production.
I have already had so many names. Before Huffy Fibryyx, there was WUSE and Nastyshit. I love creating personas. But that may not be very correct, and I’m thinking of putting everything under Huffy Fibryyx. I really like rapping over a straight kick drum or fast beats. Sometimes I’ve had great performances. Recently, I had my first public live performance for 30 minutes. The setup: computer, mixer, and microphone. I want to move in this direction now. After all, initially, in 2018, when I came up with Huffy Fibryyx, I wanted to do industrial R&B, but I didn’t have enough experience for that then. It’s probably only now that I am roughly discovering my own sound.
Another old alias is Cyberwitch, right? I feel like cyberpunk plays an important role in your aesthetic. Can you tell us how important the internet has been for you in terms of meeting like-minded creative people and starting to share your music?
The Cyberwitch persona emerged around 2020, a bit before the creation of the Black Holes label. That’s when I fully decided to dedicate myself to magic and exploring the otherworldly. Of course, leading up to that point, I had absorbed a lot of knowledge, and cyberpunk definitely played a role. For example, I encountered Timothy Leary and his book “Seven Tongues of God” when I was around 16 or 17, and I read Aleister Crowley’s “Diary of a Drug Fiend” even earlier, at 15. However, I never really got into the science fiction that people usually associate with cyberpunk. I was more influenced by philosophers like Georges Bataille, Antonin Artaud, and Gilles Deleuze.
At university, I discovered cyberfeminism, which had a profound impact on my development. Of course, there was Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto”, but also other cyberfeminist authors. I even started building my own women’s communities back then; I had my own magazine called “Shkura.” But that’s a bit of a tangent. As for the internet, it has always been my wonderful saviour. I simply wouldn’t have found this knowledge and these people at such a young age without it. I got my first internet connection when I was 12. Forums, chat rooms, and lots and lots of music and movies that I could find and absorb.
Back then, the internet was pure, naive, beautiful, and full of treasures. Now, it’s more like a terrible dump of garbage, fakes, and lies. But the most wonderful thing remains: the ability to find people based on vibe, to feel a genuine connection of souls simply by sending a message. That’s the most precious thing to me: synchronicity, coincidence, singularity. To find someone on the other side of the world and realise that they feel the same way as I do, and that we have roughly the same thoughts in our heads right now. That’s magic.
I dream of meeting some of the people I’ve met online in real life. Just the fact of their existence and their creativity inspires me to keep living. I used to be very eager to share everything online. When I uploaded my first tracks to soundcloud, I was surprised that anyone liked them at all. I don’t know how it works, but soundCloud, for me, is a genuine example of a social network based on feeling. It’s music; everything is immediately perceived. It’s hard to deceive or pretend, as you can do on instagram or facebook. Back in 2020, soundcloud reminded me of the internet of the 2000s – that feeling of freedom and genuine connection. Soundcloud gave me faith in myself, that I can actually make music, that it’s needed.
These people, my listeners and other musicians, shared with me this soul-crushing loneliness that I always feel. And I with them – I can hear everything in a track: the breaking point, the pain, the feelings, the mood, the energy, the vibe. Someone’s songs could save my life, extend the night, capture a moment, stop time in a loop. Now, it’s hard for me to share anything online, or even to look at anything there. Everything is very selective and deliberate. And the digital field is becoming dirtier and faker. There are far fewer wonderful communications and discoveries; now everything is like in real life. You can no longer be yourself online if you want attention and likes. But I’m still searching, still building my virtual cyber-village, my community.
I’ve heard other producers say this about soundcloud ca 2020 as well. I hope one day there will be a new, unregulated ‘internet’ again but if not, do you think we can go back to the genuine connections that we had before the internet?
Yes, soundcloud became quite a discovery in 2019-2020. There was a boom in interest and activity there. Regarding the internet… I believe that the modern project of technological progress, including the internet, began as the embodiment of a cherished dream that had been brewing since the 80s. But now we see the absolute flip side, how humanity has changed with the introduction of technology, social media, and the internet. We didn’t arrive in paradise, but rather, we seem to have revealed our empty, primitive, and cruel essence. In the internet as a whole, it has become difficult to find what you were looking for, to find the original source or a reliable portal. Everything is permeated with marketing and propaganda, including people. The dark ages of the internet.
Therefore, I personally now avoid spending too much time online, preferring real-life communication. But music, art and philosophy are what make people unite and find their own kind and their own thing. Whoever seeks will always find, no matter how toxic the field may be now.
