Sound Advice: Felix Cartal

Join Felix Cartal on Sound Advice, the weekly interview series covering artists’ journeys and their creative process. In this episode, we discuss the Vancouver DJ/producer’s cross-genre sound, production tips, his latest album, ‘i sabotage’ and much more.

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Welcome to Sound Advice, the series spotlighting artists’ creative process and their SoundCloud journey. We’ll get the inside knowledge straight from the source on how musicians, producers and creatives are leaning into everything SoundCloud offers to elevate their sound, get heard and catapult their careers. Sound Advice is now available in audio format on the SoundCloud Stories profile.

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Our guest on this episode of Sound Advice is Vancouver-based Felix Cartal. The veteran DJ/producer is an undeniable SoundCloud OG, whose chart-topping hits bridge the worlds of house and disco with indie rock and pop. Throughout this exclusive interview, we talk about Felix’s punk DIY roots, his bloghouse ascent — including his rise after signing to Steve Aoki’s Dim Mak Records — and how he eventually shifted from shocking drops to timeless songwriting. 

Felix dives into his favorite tools and production techniques, expanding on how embracing mistakes has led to some of his most daring and memorable records. He explains how his approach to collaborating with artists involves starting simple, building together and avoiding the trap of overproducing demos that stifle creativity. 

Elsewhere in this conversation, Felix discusses albums as ambitious storytelling projects, talks about the deeper themes of his latest full-length, October 2025’s ‘i, sabotage,’ and shares practical advice for leveraging SoundCloud with social media to build a community around your music. Whether you're chasing viral hits or crafting a big album, Felix Cartal’s journey reminds us that having fun, staying curious and staying true to your voice are the keys to longevity in music.

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LISTEN TO THE AUDIO EPISODE OF SOUND ADVICE FEATURING FELIX CARTAL

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LISTEN TO ‘I, SABOTAGE’ BY FELIX CARTAL ON SOUNDCLOUD

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Things We Talked About In This Episode of Sound Advice

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How Felix Cartal’s Punk and Bloghouse Roots Inform His DIY Spirit and Music Today

• Growing up in a suburb outside the Western Canadian city of Vancouver, Felix Cartal cut his teeth in punk bands. As he looks back at his early career, he reflects on his experiences writing songs with friends, putting on DIY shows and learning to be a promoter. When the band he played in broke up during his first year of university, he decided to channel that punk rock spirit into learning how to produce electronic music, drawing on some early exposure to software tools like Cubase and Reason.
• Felix’s first electronic EP, ‘Skeleton,’ dropped on Steve Aoki’s Dim Mak Records in 2009 — in the era of distorted, rock-infused dance music, led by bloghouse acts like Justice and MSTRKRFT, among others. That crossover, DIY spirit appealed to Felix and his punk roots, and still shapes his musical choices today. “I think I’ll always approach writing music with that lens,” he says.

Felix Cartal’s Production Tips for Dance Producers Collaborating With Vocalists 

• Here, Felix goes into more detail about how that informs his collaborations, especially with bands and vocalists who’ve never done an electronic or club track before. The guiding question he loves to pose in sessions is “What would that sound like?” As he reflects, it injects curiosity into the room, opening up a lane where indie instincts and dancefloor functionality can come together — even if it’s shocking and messy, it’s all the better for it. 
• “There’s always a way to make it work,” Felix says. He goes into greater detail about how he likes to work with other artists — remotely and in person — and how he structures songwriting and production sessions in order to get the best out of each other.  “We can feel a lot more attached to the song when we started from the bones, together,” he says. 
• What were Felix’s goals when starting out as an electronic producer, and what are his goals now? Early on, he says, his guiding principles were pretty basic: chasing the adrenaline rush of “does it work in the club?” while slowly learning more technical elements of the craft, like side-chaining and compression. 
• Going into more technical detail, Felix talks about some of his more “daring” records in his catalog, and how learning as you go can accidentally yield really interesting, left-field results. “I wanted to make records that were shocking,” he says, which led him to chase that dancefloor reaction high. 
• However, reflecting on his goals today, Felix showcases the evolution of his thinking. Here, he goes back to some core collaborations that shifted his mindset and emboldened him as a producer — with Lights, Kaskade, and Tegan and Sara, among others — and saw him move into fuller songwriting. “Good production doesn’t save a bad song,” he says.

The Worldbuilding Evolution of Felix Cartal’s Latest Album, ‘i, sabotage’

• In the last year, Felix released his fifth album, ‘i, sabotage,’ and its deluxe version, ‘i (still) sabotage.’ The conversation moves onto the making of the album and how Felix worked with various collaborators. He talks about the note-taking app that he uses to keep track of ideas, like a running series of “Post-its on my phone,” across films, music and wider reading. Armed with those notes, Felix shares how he references his notes with collaborators during their sessions to get the creative sparks flying.
• Albums, for Felix, are world-building exercises. They signal his intentions and allow for greater risk-taking, particularly in a genre that historically focuses on singles and EPs. Here, he talks more about his song-writing strategies and how he likes to create dance albums that feel like diaries. “I feel like documenting my eras,” he says. “I don’t know how I’d do that if I was only releasing singles.”
• One of those stories is how he’s evolved his use of voice in his music. He’s a self-confessed “vocal chop lover,” and flexes that on ‘i sabotage.’ Here, he explains more thoroughly the production techniques he uses to get the most out of voices, and how he made his track “Wanna Go.” 

Felix Cartal on Bringing Bloghouse Energy into Felix’s Artist-to-Fan Online Strategies 

• Felix says that he’s “a product of the Hype Machine days,” the 2000s era when indie blog aggregators could catapult a SoundCloud upload of your track into the spotlight overnight. The instantaneous feedback — through time-stamped comments and fan-led discussion — provided crucial early wins for Felix, and showed him now he could utilise the internet as an artist.
• In tandem with this, Felix has been on SoundCloud since the platform’s earliest days, and has long-used it to build a community around his music. Here, he talks about how he’s hosted mixes and big radio moments, and his series The Weekend Workout, where he has uploaded over 200 episodes of his DJing to date.
• Through SoundCloud and blog culture, Felix’s audience has grown and his career has become multi-directional. As mixes are posted to socials, they funnel back to SoundCloud, and special in-person touchpoints turn online listeners into ticket-buying attendees to his show. The goal, Felix says, is simple — “win the internet for one day.” A recent example of this strategy is the running events he hosted in Toronto and Vancouver, to promote ‘i, sabotage.’

Wise Words of Advice to Fellow Artists — and What’s Next for Felix Cartal in 2026

• Felix feels that having a mix of IRL and URL in your fandom is important to not only growing your career, but maintaining a healthy balance for yourself as an artist. Here, he talks about how he likes — and doesn’t like — to use social media, and shares some wisdom about how to not compare yourself to others, separate yourself from outcomes you can’t control, and keep your music joyful. 
• Reflecting on his journey so far, Felix also gives broader advice to fellow artists: it’s better to take risks than play it safe, cultivate a small circle of peers to give honest feedback and use SoundCloud as your musical laboratory. On the platform, he likes to share drafts of mixes and track ideas through private links, and he pays attention to comments that fans post on his public tracks. By doing all of that together, those IRL and URL relationships can create a healthy world for you as a producer.
• Looking into 2026, Felix Cartal is looking forward to releasing his next single. He describes it as a “a “thrashy, almost punk rock” club record, co-written in Vancouver with vocalist Ashley Sienna. It’s been a secret weapon in his sets and is finally ready for release. He’s also in the midst of his extended album tour of North America, and is looking forward to hosting his daytime party in Toronto, Rosé Disco. You can find out more about Felix Cartal’s upcoming tour dates here.

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Links and Extras

Follow Felix Cartal’s journey on SoundCloud.
Press play on Felix Cartal’s 2026 album, ‘i (still), sabotage.’
Hit play on Felix Cartal’s collaboration with Charlie Houston, titled “Nothing Like This.”
Go back to where it all began with one of Felix Cartal’s early tracks, 2017’s “Hold Tight.”
Explore some of Felix Cartal’s wide-ranging influences, including Justice, Tame Impala and Daft Punk to name a few. 
Listen to the Club Party Bangers playlist on SoundCloud.
Never miss an episode and follow the official Sound Advice playlist on SoundCloud.

Getting The Most Out of SoundCloud

Learn more about using DMs to connect with fellow artists and potential collaborators.
Learn more about how to make a custom playlist on SoundCloud.
Learn more about unlimited uploads, available with an Artist Pro subscription.
Learn more unlocking access to unlimited distribution, available with Artist Pro.
Learn more about getting heard with SoundCloud’s updated algorithm, available to Artist and Artist Pro subscribers.

To discover additional features a SoundCloud Artist or Artist Pro subscription offers, visit here. To catch up on past installments of Sound Advice and make sure you don’t miss out on future episodes, visit here.

_{CREDITS Host: Vivian Host, Executive Producer: Mike Spinella, Producer: KC Orcutt, Audio Engineer: David “DibS” Shackney, Coordinator: Trevor McGee, Editorial Associate: Lauren Martin}