How did the idea for the magazine come along?
Our first idea about an electronic music magazine came roughly five or six years ago when we wanted to do a blog related to this culture and the community pertaining to it. It was only two years ago when we actually started making serious progress in this direction. We were totally inexperienced, had no knowledge whatsoever. We just had a vision and knew what the final result should look like. Imagine a couple of people sitting in a flat and writing post-it notes and posting them on the board. It’s a case of trial and error at best – learning by doing it all on our own.

Who is a part of the Solvd team?
The core of the team consists of really close friends who go way back – as far back as high school. We have a lot of life experiences and memories together and it’s nice to be doing projects together – although that can be tricky as well. The other part of the gang is friends we’ve met in recent years plus all the people who just happened to fall into our idea of the team perfectly. We praise people who can contribute in their own way and give us different perspectives.

Who do you collaborate with?
We collaborate with many different people and take part in different audiences. And it’s constantly evolving. Mostly it’s artists we know and support, labels, promoters, club owners and other publishing houses and agencies alike. We respond to EVERY message we get and always try to include anyone who wants to take part in this little project of ours.

What sets you apart from other music magazines / platforms?
First and foremost we’re one of the rare magazines located in the Balkans operating in English. We try our best to portray our scene to the outside world and get new sets of eyes and ears in, which is always a great thing. We almost always take the first step when starting collaboration, then try to build on that and get a solid relationship going. It’s more personal this way, instead of just growing too big – do that and in the end, you get so big you eventually eat yourself.

How do you cover all the musical events?
We honestly don’t cover all the stuff going on, it’s what turns our heads or flies into our mailboxes. We cover about half of the stuff out there. The scene here is peculiar; at one moment there’s too much going on, the next day you are out there on your own feeling stranded. Just in Croatia alone, the festival season stretches out into more than 70 days of festivals going on and on. How are you going to cover all that and not smother your audience? We do our best to cover the smaller ones worthy of our attention and of course stay in touch with the rest as best as we can.

Where can people find you?
You can find us all around. Yes, you will definitely see us throwing down on the floor of K4 as we’re hosting our monthly SOLVD residency in there. We also go to other events we cover to show support and meet new people. If there’s something fresh going on and we’re writing about it – expect to find us there as well. We wish we could go to all the events,  but it’s just impossible. And we do our absolute best – promise!

What are your plans for the future?
Ahhh.. The good stuff. What’s in store for the future? Well, first of all, make sure you follow our every step. Not trying to be too secretive here as we are doing a lot of planning and all that. But just getting all the info in here would be too easy. Investigate, follow us. We don’t bite! #solvd

You can find SolvdMag on Instagram (solvdmag), website https://solvdmag.com/, or Facebook: SolvdMag

 

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Interviewed by Anja Korošec