Slowly but surely, Marginalia has quietly become one of dance music’s most values-driven imprints. Built on a simple, uncompromising rule: sign the music, not the profile.
In this conversation, Istanbul-born, Barcelona-based founder ELIF opens up about the community that grew organically around that philosophy, the making of the Liminal MX “Save Me” remix EP, the hard call to leave a big name off a tracklist when the music didn’t feel right, and why patience, not hype, is the real signal she looks for in new artists. From an unexpected Anjunadeep email that changed everything, to a candid take on the blurred line between underground and mainstream, this is a look at what it takes to build a label and a home to fellow artists.
Your label Marginalia was built around a very specific philosophy of creative freedom and community. Now that the label has reached its 40th release, how has that original vision held up and what surprised you most about where it’s taken you?
The core vision ‘sign the music, not the profile, and give real creative freedom’ : I think that part has held up completely. What surprised me is how much the community dimension took on a life of its own. Artists on the label started finding each other, collaborating, and building friendships. I wasn’t trying to synthetically manufacture that, but at the same time even the way we communicate on socials or behind the scenes through release preparation emails is quite encouraging of these natural bonds. When we do a showcase I encourage all the artists to come support each other. I always try to be there myself from the first warm-up until the last artist closes. When budgets allow, I try to rent a big place together instead of separate hotel rooms which give us a chance to really connect as people, not just collaborators.
I also still can’t get over the fact that we’ve been able to build a community of listeners who are genuinely like-minded, nice people in such a short amount of time. I think it happened because the ethos was real. Forty releases in, the thing I’m most proud of isn’t any single track, a superstar remixer, a chart position, or an editorial placement: it’s that the label feels like a real place people belong to and the artists that we invested in early who are killing it right now. Even when I have to say ‘no’ or ‘not now’ to music, what I try very hard not to give is that ‘you can’t sit with us’ energy. Our doors are open to anyone who is patient and creative enough to find their own unique sound.
The Liminal MX “Save Me” remix EP brings together seven very different artists across seven very different sonic worlds. What made this the right moment to revisit Liminal MX’s debut album, and what did the process look like? Do you brief artists with a direction, or do you hand over full creative freedom and see what comes back?
‘Save Me’ was Marginalia’s 16th release in our 2nd year and the first ever album. Liminal MX, Santi, was barely legal when he first sent me his music. I played “Save Me” everywhere and people were singing along at my shows before most of them even knew who he was. Choosing a second track for an EP felt impossible because honestly every single track Santi was sending me as a demo was strong and had its own identity. So I took a leap of faith and made an album instead, and I always knew a remix album with different interpretations would follow one day to support his work.
For the remixers, who were all chosen with intention both in terms of sound and personal relationships, I handed over full creative freedom. No briefs, no direction. What came back was seven completely different interpretations, as expected. Mustafa Ismaeel bringing deep groove to “Hold Forever,” Mehill reshaping “Save Me” out of pure love and support for Santi, Fur Coat taking “Remember” somewhere melodic and dancefloor-ready, JAMIIE’s slow-burning Afro-house approach to “Feel Me,” derderwandert layering his own spoken word voice over the original female vocal on “With Me” creating a conversation within the track and delivering the remix within 24 hours of receiving the stems and Predex closing the album with precision on “Complicated.” I personally took “Fast Line” as the last remaining track, because I gave priority to all the others first, though I could have remixed any of them.
Every artist on the remix package has a genuine connection to the label and to Liminal MX, you contribute with a remix yourself too. How important is that relational element to you when curating a project like this and what does it look like when that chemistry is missing?
It’s everything for a project like this. A remix isn’t just a technical task, you need someone who actually cares about the music they’re reinterpreting. When the connection is there, you can hear it. When it’s missing, you can hear that too.
I’ll be honest, there was one remix we had been discussing with an artist we admire for over a year that I eventually had to leave out. Someone I deeply respect, whose name would have looked impressive on the tracklist and on our roster. But the remix wasn’t there. The low end was missing, the energy wasn’t right. I think maybe he saw Liminal MX or Marginalia as not important enough, and you could tell. Putting it on the release just for the sake of having his name would have been a disservice to Liminal MX, to the project, and to the artist himself. It was a hard call, and I genuinely hope we’ll work together in the future. I’ve also had remixes of mine rejected by other labels in the past, and JAMIIE’s first remix for Marginalia was never released, but she never took it personally and came back with a killer remix the second time around. So I really hope this artist doesn’t take this as anything other than an artistic decision. Saving us at the last minute, the amazing Mustafa Ismaeel came in and delivered something I’m proud to have on the label. The music always has to be the reason why something lands on Marginalia, not clout, not hype, not the metrics.
For this very special album specifically, I wanted people who I have known for years, who feel like family, who support Marginalia since the beginning, who knew what it meant, not just producers who were available.
Walk us through how you actually find and select artists for your label. Is it intuition, curation, relationships or something different?
Probably a mix of all of the above. We receive a lot of demos and I listen to everything. But I can’t always say yes immediately, I have to test the huge amount of music I pre-select and also there’s only so many release slots available in a year. What I’ve noticed over three years is that the artists who eventually end up on the label are rarely the ones who sent one email and disappeared. It’s the ones who kept submitting as their music evolved, who were patient to wait over 1.5 years sometimes (whose profiles we started supporting and developing in the meantime), who showed up to our events, who became part of the community before they were ever on the roster. There’s also some music I would have signed but the artists did not want to wait. I respect that. But to answer the question: patience is a real signal. So is originality. If the music sounds like a copy of whatever’s charting on a hype label right now, or what we released 2-3 months ago, that’s a no. I look for a unique sonic identity. And honestly? Also humble, friendly, nice people!
There’s a real tension in A&R between trusting your ear and trusting data. Where do you sit on that, especially now that streaming analytics and algorithm signals are everywhere?
My ear, always. If I signed things based on what the algorithm was rewarding this month, the label would sound like everything else. The whole point of Marginalia is to be an alternative to that logic. That said, data isn’t irrelevant, it’s useful after the fact, understanding how music finds its audience. And there’s actually a strategic layer to it: sometimes pairing a smaller emerging artist with a remixer who has a stronger data presence is a deliberate move. It helps the music reach people it otherwise wouldn’t. So data informs the strategy around a release, but never the decision to sign it.
You grew up in Turkey and built your career in Barcelona. What did the earliest version of your musical life look like and how far is that person from who you are now?
Pretty far in terms of context, not so far in terms of character. I grew up in Istanbul obsessed with music but convinced I was never an artist myself. I studied architecture, I had a music blog,, I managed an indie rock band. Music was always the center of my life but always from the outside. The version of me that started DJing at 30 would probably shock my 22-year-old self as much as she’s shocking me right now at 40. The curiosity, the stubbornness, the motivation to carve my own path instead of following the masses, the need for things to feel authentic: that’s always been there. The rest has just kept evolving.
Was there a specific moment, another artist, record, or experience that made you feel like this is going to be your life? What inspired you to become a full-time music artist?
Anjunadeep emailing me out of nowhere in 2018 when I had 2-3 podcasts in my small humble soundcloud was an early memory I could remember.. I had just played a small festival in Germany with no cell reception and when I got out, I saw an email from Anjunadeep asking me for a podcast. I really thought it was friends pranking me, so I checked the sender address multiple times. Later the next year they wanted to sign my first ever track that I did not even finish, seeing the work in progress in stories. Like, okay, maybe people actually hear what I’m trying to do. From there I gave myself permission to take it even more seriously.
What does the scene in Barcelona look like right now? Is there something specific about Barcelona’s scene that Marginalia couldn’t have been born anywhere else or is the label ultimately a product of you, not the city?
Barcelona is a great hub for anyone traveling a lot, but especially for DJs, because of its proximity to Ibiza. It also has a lot of open airs and world class clubs plus a huge Latin American community who are famously one of the best crowds in the world.
Honestly, a label today is largely digital and could technically exist from anywhere. But we love being here. Barcelona gave us the conditions to grow: the culture, the year-round energy and of course Off Week. We’ve made Off Week ours and we take it very seriously, hosting events here every year, and that physical presence means something. The roster itself is completely global though: Middle East, Asia, Latin America, Europe. So the label isn’t a Barcelona sound, although being here and collaborating with international artists who call Barcelona home like the German Doctor Dru, Venezuelan Fur Coat, Brazilian Althoff to name a few has definitely shaped it. But at the end of the day, the city is a home. The music has no borders.
The underground has always defined itself against the mainstream but that line feels blurrier than ever right now. What are your thoughts on the current state of the electronic music scene?
Well I talk about it in some of my videos and just sharing the reality of things from my POV without really judging anyone. I think there’s no underground versus mainstream but more like ‘fake it for the cameras’ vs ‘ authentic. Exposure isn’t the enemy. What matters is whether artists and labels are making decisions based on what they actually believe in, or based on what they think the algorithm wants. The underground has always been about values more than audience size yet you can play Tomorrowland and still have integrity. You can have 10,000 monthly listeners and be completely hollow. The line was never really about scale.
For a producer or DJ just finding their footing right now, what’s the one thing you wish someone had told you early on, and the one myth you’d want them to stop believing?
What I wish someone had told me: the pace at which this industry moves is not the pace at which you need to move. I spent years feeling I was behind because I wasn’t picked up by a huge agency or signed by a life-changing label and even felt insecure at times. It’s a trap. You can still build a meaningful artistic journey without the big hype.
And something I’d add for anyone starting out right now specifically: don’t depend on fleeting social media algorithms. Try to build a direct connection to your owned audience and communicate with them directly, instead of trying to reach them through chasing trends that the algorithm will reward today but forget about tomorrow. Own your audience and give them a reason to stick to you.
The myth I’d kill: that you need to be in the right city, know the right people, have the right connections, or release on one of the top labels before anything can happen. Look at the artists on Marginalia: Liminal MX came in through a demo, built a debut album on the label, and now has a full remix EP with artists from across the world interpreting his music. Fur Coat, who has been a pillar of this scene for over a decade, contributed a remix without even asking for conditions. That’s not a story about connections, hype, or leverage. That’s a story about music finding its people over time, through patience and consistency: and those are the key words here.
Instead of obsessing over releasing on a huge label that will probably never even book you to their own events, or care in your artistic journey, it’s smarter to build your own crew, start investing in your own platform, and release your best music there. Good things take time. A fast rise can have a faster decline. But what’s built with intention and authenticity will outlive anyone trying to piggyback on someone else’s fame or clout.