THE dream of relocation to Europe’s cultural capitals has long exerted a pull on creative sorts in Scotland, with Berlin, Barcelona, Amsterdam and Paris among the usual destinations. Copenhagen would traditionally appear a long way down this list, but Emma Blake, who will soon inaugurate the in-house record label of the Glasgow club La Cheetah with the deliciously menacing electro of her Mario EP, has not only made a huge success of the move but actually attributes her entire involvement in music to the city’s influence.

Blake, who is also a member of the riotous, all-female DJ gang Apeiron Crew, was heavily involved in Glasgow’s Subcity Radio and the scene that surrounds it for several years. However, as she explained to me between appearances at this week’s Roskilde Festival, she had a strange reticence when it came to DJing and producing that she had to leave Glasgow to finally shed.

“It’s odd,” she begins, “I practically lived in the Subcity office for years but for some reason I decided that my role was just as a producer on other people’s radio shows rather than as a DJ or a producer of my own music, or a promoter. It’s hard to say why but I just never felt comfortable about the idea of stepping up and trying those things in Glasgow. I think it was partly to do with the fact that the city is so saturated with nights and DJs already, and…” she pauses. “I’m trying not to make this about gender, but to be honest that probably was a factor too. If a new girl turned up in my scene of pals I wouldn’t have assumed she would be DJing or producing music, and I think that did feed into me deciding that my place was in the background, without having really done anything to find out for sure if that was true.”

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Solid Blake playing at this week's Roskilde Festival. Photograph: Rune Abro

Given this, it’s unsurprising to learn that Blake’s move from Glasgow to Copenhagen wasn’t made with the intention of unlocking some latent musical talent, but rather to do a masters in Cognition and Communication. “I arrived here intending to chill out with the partying, get my head down and do my masters,” she laughs. “But the day I arrived I heard (Detroit electro legend and erstwhile touring DJ for Drexciya) DJ Stingray was playing that weekend at a club called Dunkel.

“I’m a huge fan and had met him before in Edinburgh, and I just thought, ‘I have to go ...’. I went on my own, and at the end I went up to talk to him. Through him I got talking to the promoter of the party, and that was the start of it all really. I just kind of harassed everyone into being my pal after that,” she laughs. “I was so keen, I became the kind of punter who was in the club by 11.02pm every night, really excited and ready for anything.”

Three of the many people Blake successfully “harassed” into being her friends were Najaaraq Vestbirk (Courtesy), Sara Svanholm (Mama Snake) and Simone Øster (Smokey), who, once she gave in and actually started DJing, became her partners in the wonderfully chaotic, much-celebrated fun-juggernaut Apeiron Crew. “It’s funny, Danish people always claim that they’re quite closed and difficult to make friends with, but I haven’t found that at all.

"I don’t think that’s because I’m unusually likeable or anything,” she says, convincing no-one. “I think it’s just that we all had something in common (electronic music) to talk about, and because they liked the fact that I’d put the time and effort in to meet and get to know them. The masters programme I was on was really international – there were only six Danish people out of 26 – but most of the other people on it just stuck together socially and did stuff around the student union. Getting out and meeting people elsewhere was really important for me, and from there things came together really well, and I ended up with a good team here.”

That team has kept Blake in Copenhagen for six years and counting now, and Apeiron Crew (now a trio following the departure of Vestbirk to concentrate on solo endeavours) continue to be booked around Europe, with their next Scottish show coming up at Optimo’s 20th-birthday festival in Glasgow on August 6. Her links with the city, and in particular with La Cheetah, remain as strong as when she was a regular in the atmospheric Queen Street basement. “Wardy and Dom (Grahame Ward and Dom D'Sylva, the managers of La Cheetah's new Outer Zone record label) and Dario (Bernardi, owner of the venue and label) all knew me when I was just a daft wee lassie,” she says, “so it’s really lovely that they even asked to hear stuff from me for the label.”

Blake has kept in touch with DJ Stingray too, and (to what she readily admits is her complete amazement) the man himself has contributed an excellent remix of Mario’s title track to her EP. “When I first heard that Outer Zone had approached him I was incredibly happy and excited for about ten minutes,” she laughs. “But then I realised I was actually going to have to send him my stuff for approval, which I found totally mortifying! I spent the next week checking my email every two minutes and completely freaking out, thinking he must hate it…”

Unsurprisingly, things didn’t quite turn out that way; indeed, learning to handle the giddy stress of enlisting her heroes as remixers may now be the sole remaining obstacle between Blake and the success she deserves.

Solid Blake’s Mario EP is out on Outer Zone on July 7, and clips from the EP can be heard here. Apeiron Crew play at the Optimo 20 festival in Glasgow on August 6