Moving forward one song at a time

Rather than rushing toward a full-length album, Suzi Sabotage has been deliberately releasing singles, a strategy shaped together with her label. While an album is very much in the works, its original concept proved too complex and creatively stifling. “I changed my plans a bit regarding that album,” she explains. “I was kind of stuck with the older concept… now I think it’s good to move things forward and get things done.”

That earlier idea hasn’t been scrapped entirely, it’s simply waiting for the right moment. For now, progress and momentum take priority, even if it means simplifying the vision in the short term.

Escaping the city and returning to the wild

That sense of release and rebirth is central to ‘Suden synty’. The track carries a cold, ritualistic atmosphere while also hinting at something more organic beneath the surface. Suzi traces its origins back to a bleak November day, staring out at polluted snow and grey city lights. “I was kind of fed up with that scenery and just wished that I could run away to nature,” she recalls.

The song became an imagined escape: a return to roots, simplicity, and the purity of the wild. It’s less about literal geography and more about a psychological shift: shedding the weight of the city and finding renewal elsewhere.

When music needs to confront rather than comfort

If ‘Suden synty’ leans toward transformation and rebirth, ‘She-Demon’ occupies a far more abrasive emotional space. It’s harsher, more confrontational, and intentionally unsettling. For Suzi, both approaches are equally necessary. “Sometimes I want to deliver hope, and sometimes just some kind of catharsis for my own dark thoughts and the dark side of reality,” she says.

Those decisions are rarely accidental. Suzi usually begins with a clear concept or theme before composing the music itself, letting that guiding idea determine whether a song should soothe or disturb. Comfort and confrontation are not opposites in her work, but complementary forces.

Language, ritual and the uncanny

One of the most striking moments on ‘She-Demon’ is the Finnish incantation woven into the track’s closing moments. For listeners unfamiliar with the language, it takes on an almost spell-like quality. Interestingly, this wasn’t planned from the outset. “It came kind of naturally,” Suzi explains, noting her growing interest in bilingual and polyglot bands.

Using Finnish allowed her to lean into repetition, alliteration, and rhythm in a way that heightened the song’s sense of mystery. It also adds an uncanny edge, something familiar yet inaccessible, ritualistic rather than explanatory.

Atmosphere over genre

Trying to pin Suzi Sabotage down to a single genre has always been a losing game. Her sound moves freely between darkwave, synthpop, EBM, neofolk, and harsher electronic textures, depending largely on what she’s listening to at the time. Mixing influences is not a strategy, but a necessity.

Yeah, it depends a lot on what I’m listening to at the moment and what I’m vibing to. Sometimes I’ve been wanting to incorporate some more synth pop vibes like 80s vintage vibes. And sometimes it’s just straight up murky EBM kind of rave music that I want to convey. Yeah, I’m bad at staying still in that sense that I have to, you know, mix up influences. And sometimes it’s Neofolk, sometimes it’s more classic Darkwave. So yeah, I think it’s kind of a mishmash, but it looks like it’s working.

Despite these shifts, there’s a clear red thread running through her work. The kantele, introduced years after she began making purely electronic music, has become somewhat of a defining element. Originally a spontaneous experiment using an instrument she was gifted, it proved too fitting to abandon and has remained part of her sonic identity ever since on some of her songs.

Drawing lines and taking care of the community

Beyond atmosphere and aesthetics, Suzi Sabotage’s music has long carried a confrontational edge aimed at intolerance within underground scenes. Her outspoken anti-fascist stance emerged naturally during a period when far-right ideologies began surfacing in spaces that should have been safe and inclusive. “It’s important to express all sides of you and take care of your community,” she says.

In her view, inclusion isn’t passive. It sometimes requires explicitly pushing back. That tension, between openness and refusal, continues to inform both her lyrics and her broader artistic intent.

Looking ahead

With the Helsinki show marking her final performance of the year, Suzi Sabotage is already looking forward. The upcoming album is taking shape with a harsher sonic direction, closer in spirit to ‘She-Demon’ and ‘Nazi Goths Fuck Off’. Live plans and collaborations are also on the horizon, even if nothing has been officially announced yet.

For now, Suzi Sabotage remains firmly in motion, guided by instinct, atmosphere, and the willingness to change course when needed. It’s a restless energy, but one that continues to produce music that feels both deeply personal and sharply attuned to the world around it.

Before leaving Suzi to take a breather still before she has to take over the stage, we still asked her who she’d love to possibly collaborate with in the future writing music. Top of her list was Sierra Veins, who she was supporting that night, as she very much looks up to the sound and attitude, and the iconic kind of vibe that surrounds it. She also mentions some of her dear friends like Ratpajama, Night In Athens, and Aux Animaux.

I have plenty of brilliantly talented friends whom I would love to write music together with.

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