Tiga Sontag is getting ready for the big time.

To some fans, Sontag is already there: a widely respected DJ and one of the club world's most recognizable faces, Sontag can (and does) work with whomever he wants. His sophomore album, Ciao!, a masterful blend of pop pleasure and club power, is also a collaborative triumph, featuring contributions from techno kingpins (Jori Hulkkonen, Jesper Dahlbäck) and indie dance icons (James Murphy, Soulwax) alike.

But the one name in the liner notes club kids might not recognize - Gonzales - might be the most important one of all. A classically trained pianist and producer for the likes of Feist, Gonzales helped convert Sontag's wildest fantasies into unimpeachably good pop music, pushing Sontag that much closer toward his next big task: fronting a band.

Between that very big leap and the upcoming release of Omnidance, Turbo Recordings' latest compilation, there was a lot to talk about, and not a lot of time to talk about it in. Read on, and try to keep up.
First off: you're in Milan! Did you take the gig just to get some shopping in?
[Laughs] I tried. I had a day of rest yesterday, and I had a day off today, which is pretty rare. And it's a beautiful day, but I'm at the tail end of a tour and, I'm being honest, I got nothing left! I got no energy to make decisions, even shopping! I did look around, but I didn't buy anything.

I'm kind of impressed that you're up at this hour! Usually at this time of the day, superstar DJs' lifeless bodies are being shipped from one location to another by their managers.
Unfortunately, my old fashioned DJ routine, which was work from 4-6 in the morning, is gone. This tour I had to double shift. In the morning, it's usually press or video, or even shooting music videos. So this time I haven't had as much time to lick my wounds.

Well then, let's keep this business-like. and jump right into it. On one of the preview podcasts you did for Ciao!, one of your co-producers, Gonzalez, called working with you "a slog."
[Laughs]

And you agreed! Obviously, songwriting is something you've worked on a lot since Sexor, but you also make no bones about being a relatively unskilled guy who is still committed to getting exactly what he wants.
I've grown into it, especially on a collaborative level, because it wasn't always there. I've always had some native confidence in my own ability, but [as far as having] the confidence to work with other people, especially quite accomplished people like James Murphy - and they're also quite strong, as characters - I think what happened was, before I'd done anything, before I'd made any music at all, I was very insecure about how I would do it, like how would this actually happen. You spend a lot of time thinking, about whether it would even happen. And then I had a few early collaborations with Jori Hulkonnen and Jesper Dahlbeck. More techno stuff and remixes, but I really built up a lot of confidence through years of working with them. And then eventually, it gets to a point where you think, "Well, obviously, I'm good at something. Obviously, I bring something to the table, or they wouldn't be talking to me." But it's crucial that you have that confidence, because if you don't trust your own taste, you're useless. You're useless to them, you're useless to yourself, and it'll end in tears.

Would you say you needed those years to feel like you were ready to work with a guy like Gonzalez? Because comparatively, he's the most conventionally musical person you've ever worked with. I mean, he produces for Feist.
Yeah definitely. Being a techno kid and coming from a very electronic background, I've always romanticized what I've called '"real music". So someone like Gonzalez could've been working with Feist the day before I walked into his studio. Obviously, he symbolizes that, almost to an extreme, that world of classical training and craft and musicianship, all those things I'm not [and don't have]. But you know what I've learned in the years I've spent in the music business? What happens is, gradually, things get a bit demystified. and you start to realize what really has value is ideas and personality. And not at the exclusion of other things, but you start to realize that if you've got a good idea, it's really worth something. And you realize that the kids you went to high school with, who were great guitarists and who you always wanted to be, out there in the world, they're a dime a dozen. You realize that the world's loaded with session musicians that can't make their own music.

It's interesting though, because Ciao! balances very nicely between club music and regular pop. How big of a priority was it to get that balance right?
It definitely was. Especially working with Soulwax, it was the recurrent, the recurring theme in the late night discussions. It definitely was, and kind of continues to be. There was a moment where I thought I should just do two albums; I should do one that's a bunch of club tracks, and another that's me trying to write pop songs, just keep it simple. But then there are moments that I thought, "No, there's a natural contradiction here, and that should be explored, because it's real." Because I do listen to these different kinds of music, and I feel them. It was an open discussion, and Soulwax most understand the navigation of those two sides. because they love dance music and party tracks, and that side of DJ culture, but they come from a rock and pop background. It's an ongoing discussion, and I think trying to strike that balance is a work in progress.

It seems like both inside and outside of that discussion though, the barriers between those two worlds are starting to crumble.
Oh definitely!

That's gotta be exciting for you, but do you think there's a limit to this kind of intermingling? or is folk-house going to be all the rage in five years?
[Laughs] Well, I dunno. I think when you talk about dance music, it's a bit strange. Because yes, it's a style, but really, it means you dance. And I know that sounds really stupid, but really, it just means active, high-energy songs. Like, "Kiss", by Prince, is a dance song; "Let's Dance", by Bowie, is a dance record; Stevie wonder, "Masterblaster," these are dance records. Yeah, the walls are all falling down, but in a way it's natural. It's always kind of been that way. When it's done well, the hybrid, is great. But I'm like most people in that I have trouble talking about categories. It's tough to discuss them intelligently. [Laughs] I get bogged down with them. But when I talk about my music, I just think of it as disco. Disco, which ruled the charts and sales for many years, and arguably never really went away. Disco was a pure dance music, but at the same time it was pure pop. It had the divas, the melodies, the orchestration, it had the avant-garde in terms of some of the production values...and there was never really a debate about it: "Is it dance, is it pop?" It just kind of worked, you know? And I think that's what's happening with a lot of styles: hip hop got a lot dancier, pop got a lot dancier, and I think it's just that disco feeling coming back.

Okay, we're running out of time, so I have to move along: Omnidance. It's halfway between a retrospective and the cream of the label's last two years. What did you and Thomas [Von Party] and Matt [Walsh] conceive of it as?
For many years, at Turbo, we did compilations. It was kind of how we got started. And then over the years, we kind of got away from it. So with Omnidance, the first thing we thought was, "Okay, there's a lot of Turbo customers, who haven't had the chance to get all our releases on a CD," because it's been available solely on 12" or download. The first thing was, "Why don't we give them a best-of, and also reintroduce the label to some people?" But that was a little bit dry, a little bit [of] the old way of thinking. And nowadays, it doesn't matter anyways, so we thought "Why not throw on a bunch of new stuff too?" Eventually, the idea became, if you met someone at the gym and you were like, "this is what my label's about," and you could just hand them something, what would you hand them?

So when you say reintroduce, presumably you also want to try to expand your audience a bit too.
Oh definitely. I've had a label long enough that I've given up on all my dreams for world domination. It's quite modest, what I'm hoping for with Turbo at this point. But [as far as[ a wider audience, I think we've been quite underground in the past few years, still doing 12"s, we're kind of a big fish in a small pond, and I think the music deserves a wider audience. And when I look around at the music that's reached a bigger audience that's not necessarily any better...I think the turbo quality is solid, and really there, and I mean, look: a while ago, we were selling 15,000 mix CDs, you know? And the quality's still the same, or even better, and there's no reason we can't hit that mark again.

A lot of Omnidance slots very easily into the electro-house sound that's gotten so visible in the last couple of years. But you guys keep it low-key. there's no Turbo Carnival or magical mystery tour. There aren't Turbo grills or sneakers or whatever. Is that borne of the wisdom that comes from being around as a label for 11 years?
I think it's a combination of a few things. I believe in a marathon approach to a career in music. It's not a sprint, and that goes for my career too. I'm not saying, "This is it, bang! Right now! I wanna be number one!" and with Turbo, most of what we do at Turbo is for pleasure. It's not to get rich. And so, honestly, it's just about doing what we want, working with people we like. and I've learned that what's important is to just stick to what you love and what you believe in. And sometimes it's going to mean being unfashionable, and sometimes it's really going to work great. But getting back to what you mentioned, with the banging electro, that's a perfect example. Because like, Ed Banger's stuff, everything gets so big and so well-known and so hyped. and if you really stick with that, if that's the only thing you invest in, then you're kind of putting a time limit on things. Whereas if you say, "Hey, these are all things we like. They don't necessarily form this all-encompassing thing," then you can kind of keep trucking along.

[Pauses]

Oh, and one other thing, though: success changes everything. If we had Justice signed to Turbo, we probably would've been forced to evolve a little bit differently. [Laughs] We haven't had the mega breakthrough act yet!

I wanna get back to this thing about how you wanted to make two records. If you'd gone that route, would you have toured the pop record with a band? Because you've never toured as a lead singer, or a bandleader or whatever. Do you think you ever will?
Well, the number one question I get asked, and the number one decision in my future is to do a band or not, to present the music in a live way. I think, when it's all said and done, it's also the number one thing holding me back from some "next level" or whatever. And there's a bit of a disconnect in the end because it's music with a lead vocalist and instrumentation and a personality, and the live thing is me DJing. I've thought about it, I've wanted to do it for years, and I've been this combination of mystified, nervous and lazy. And that's held me back. It's hard, when you've been DJing for a long time, because DJing becomes very comfortable. You're out there, you're used to it, you're making money. You don't have that burning hunger that someone fronting a band has and needs. So I need to do it, I want to do it, I'm going to do it, I just need to kick myself in the ass. And by the way, how I divided the album up would be irrelevant.

But while we're indulging in the fantasy, tell me this: would Soulwax come on the road with you?
They actually offered, a long time ago, and then withdrew the offer because I waited so long. Gonzalez has offered, Dave [Dewaele] has offered, though Soulwax's schedule is probably pretty brutal. The guy who did drums on "Love Don't Dance Here Anymore," he's the singer of this band Das Pop. I would love for Soulwax to be involved. I've gotta just do it, y'know. and even if it meant just five shows in Japan or whatever.

Well, I've been informed that our time is up. You better rest up. we've got you at Webster Hall this Saturday, and we want you in top shape!
Oh I'm definitely going to be well-rested. I have my first week off [in North America]. And I'm excited, because the reaction in the States has been really good. I've never really given the States a fair chance, so it'll be nice to invest a little more time in it and see what happens.

Oh, we're ready, all right.
[Laughs]

Tiga is performing at Webster Hall on May 22. A small number of advance tickets is available here. His sophomore artist album, Ciao!, will be released in the U.S. on May 26. Pre-order your copy here.