Helping Flinta* flourish – A deep dive into Seven Records w/ CRYME
September 10, 2025
Written by
Callum .
In an increasingly blurred world, the need for accurate representation and safe spaces for marginalised communities is more important than ever, and this rings especially true for Berlin’s FLINTA* community.
FLINTA* (an acronym for Frauen, Lesben, Inter, Nicht-binäre, Trans and Agender) is a gender focused movement that began in German-speaking communities. An evolution of earlier queer/feminist movements, FLINTA*’s progressiveness flowered in underground music spaces in the late 2010s.Despite Berlin’s tolerance of its queer communities, the current situation isn’t as good as one hopes. Riddled with spikings, reports of sexual abuse in its spaces, and a lack of representation within the music industry, Berlin’s FLINTA community face some challenges to say the least, but it’s not all doom and gloom.
SEVEN is a Berlin-based label that’s tackling these issues head-on with an upbeat and positive zest. Founded by CRYME and Glenn Elliot towards the back end of 2024, SEVEN is a record label, events promoter, and mix series (they are even getting into the retail industry with an upcoming multipurpose venue that doubles as a fashion and vinyl store, and a community space). With releases from Andre Zimmer, Byron Yeates, and 1morning, to name a few, its sound sits on the fringes between house and techno, bringing a fast-paced, positive angle to Berlin’s music scene.
We recently spoke with it’s co-founder CRYME about the label, FLINTA*, and the work they are doing to support the community.
When did you decide to start the label and why?
Firstly, I thought it would be fun! I love being in music and it’s such a privilege to be able to live my life and make a living doing what I do. And then when I thought more about it I got excited about two main things. Firstly, the music. My music has always been a bit hard to fit into a genre; is it techno? Is it House? Who cares if you just like it? I wanted to make a space for the music that I love.
And secondly, I wanted to create something that brings people together. I’m a gay man but lots of my friends are women and straight men. We have lots of other gay, queer, and FLINTA* collectives that are great and do amazing important work. But for me, I wanted to make a space where people could come together – so we are Queer & FLINTA* leaning but not exclusively, so all of our straight friends and allies and amazing producers can feel at home at SEVEN also. Those two things were really what SEVEN is about; bringing together House & Techno and bringing together people.
Were there any inspirations sonically?
I’ve always loved House Music and my background is Techno where I started so they have always been my inspiration.
Are there any institutional challenges that come with running a FLINTA-identified record label, and if so, what actions do you feel need to be made to make things move in the right direction?
The biggest challenge is that music has been a man’s world for so long! There are a lot less FLINTA* producers available because there were less FLINTA* role models to be inspired by and too much conscious and unconscious male gatekeeping. Because there are less women producing, the ones that are amazing and in our musical niche can be very busy and we have to work really hard to attract them to us as a label.
A second problem is that women still get criticised so much more than men – one misstep or tiny mistake and the social media comment gang come down on them hard. It makes women much more self critical and and frightened to put anything out which they don’t think of as perfect – even though of course there is no perfect. We can really see it as a label – men are generally gung-ho and confident, women more likely to want to rework their work several times in fear of criticism.
Understanding that as a label is important and we always need to demonstrate patience, understanding and empathy for that.
The FLINTA* community has been facing some difficulties recently in Berlin, particularly around the safety of people in the city as well as the disappearance of queer and FLINTA*-friendly spaces. As someone who is experiencing this in real-time, how are you and others in the community navigating this?
I don’t know if things are worse recently but I know they have been bad for a long time. There are no FLINTA* artists who do not face discrimination or aggression on a regular basis. Every FLINTA* artist will have recent and regular stories of being harassed or intimated at gigs and events.
In terms of navigating it, we do our best and we are always trying to do better. We book FLINTA* leaning line ups and also have most of our event staff and support staff from the FLINTA* community. We can go a long way to providing the feeling of a safer space, but to be honest, there is no such thing as a safe space. Even at our last party despite everything we did we still had a spiking incident which was just so awful and really shows how hard this is to do.
Are there any collectives or organisations that are trying to help with this?
Lipservice are doing some really great work getting people together in different ways. I really respect BLVSH also. And there are some wonderful organisations and people working in awareness teams in Berlin who try really hard to build safer spaces.
DJ handbag is a trans-female artist who we love and played at our party last week. She just did an interview for Hinterhaus Magazine where she talked a lot about how she works outside of her DJ life to help make clubs safe spaces.
Is there anyone else in the community you would like to shout out?
Oh yes, there are loads of people doing great work in all sorts of ways. We are great friends with the FLINTA* collective Layers – actually I used to live with Karo and Frænzi who founded it. And we both support each other and work together whenever we can, they are great friends.
The family at Pornceptual where I am resident is a constant source of support, encouragement and inspiration for us.
I’d like to shout out a couple of straight collectives too for their support and work. Our friends at BCCO have really invested a lot these last two years in changing their position and supporting Queer and FLINTA* artists especially on their mix series. They just did a five week Pride programme involving five queer collectives from around the world. And HEISSS; run by my friend Tim (who funnily enough I also used to live with) is also being a great Ally. They are doing a fundraising right now collaborating with Lara Beratung, a specialist centre against violence and for women, trans*, inter* and non-binary persons.
I think it’s really important that non-queer organisations like BCCO and HEISS can also show up as great allies in a really meaningful and genuine way.
In what capacity do you hope the label can help support FLINTA artists?
Book them, promote them, release their music, create opportunities, encourage them and build a respected platform for them.
We want to build a really great label that people trust musically and combine that with great work seeking out new FLINTA* talent and also a way of working that is empathetic, understanding and doesn’t shut down or shut out FLINTA* Artist.
What’s next for SEVEN?
OMG! I am so excited about the next few months. In Berlin we are moving to our new office at Torstrasse this Autumn and will be opening our own record store. I can’t wait for that. And we have some incredible music coming out. I think I can give you the scoop that on 22nd November, for our first anniversary we are releasing a remix EP of my London Boy track. It has remixes by MCR-T, Roza Terenzi, JakoJako and Stef de Haan. It’s in production now and I’ve heard the mixes and they are amazing we are all so excited. Then we have EP’s from Ackermann, Stef de Haan and Baka G. And next Summer we have a whole VA of FLINTA* artists curated by Cinthie – I can’t wait for that. So so much good stuff to look forward to.
