PLASTIKMAN LIVE PETER VAN HOESEN
DONATO DOZZY
CLAUDIO PRC
8.99$ A
staff. Editor-in-chief: Filipas Rimkus Art director: Filipas Rimkus Coresponding editor: Filipas Rimkus
content. 3. Plastikman Live 7. Peter Van Hoesen 13. Donato Dozzy 17. Claudio PRC
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PLASTIKMAN LIVE The term ‘concert’ seems inadequate term to describe your current live show. What exactly is this thing you do now? Well, live music exists somewhere between music, theatre and circus right? You’re there to entertain and grab the people. I think what many DJs have learned over the last 20 years is that we are entertainers. Sure, our number one responsibility is to play great music and play great sets, but we’re also there to somehow entertain, whether that’s only by what we do musically, or by throwing our fists in the air, or programming a drum machine on the fly. There are all these different ways that you can create a show. Plastikman Live enables me to jump much further from that and bring lighting, a visual aspect, music and sounds together and have them interact in a way that is both partly pre-programmed, in that you have to make choices before you get to the show, and also very, very spontaneous and has that live feeling. It’s the liveness and spontaneity of a music concert combined with the pre-planning, lighting, visuals and design of a theatrical show.
You’ve always been interested in the live performance aspect of music. The original Plastikman records are single pass stereo mixes, right? In that way, yes. What I would always do is go into the studio and set up a number of possibilities - effects, routing, sounds, rhythm next page>>
and sequences - and then I kind of jammed with that and tried to grab the moment. That’s what we’re trying to do with Plastikman Live. We set up the paramenters - set up what we call the Plastikman system - connecting, say, the claps to the strobe lights, or the size of the circle on the screen to the frequency of the modulation - and then i’m able to do the show and interact with all those different elements. I guess the different thing is instead of just being in the studio listening to stereo speakers, i’ve got speakers, i’m watching what’s happening on a video screen, i’m watching the lights, so it gets a bit more complicated, but brings together a fully immersive show. A bit like inviting everyone to your studio. It is like that. That’s exactly why i’m in the middle of the technology. I’m shrouded by the LED displays which encircle me. I mean, I’ve made a couple of records with other people, but Plastikman was always me locked away with my machines in a dark studio. We basically built that studio and surrounded it with LED screens on a stage - and then I tweak and twiddle and see what happens. People know you’ve done something, because they can hear it, but there isn’t that same physicality. What you’re doing reintroduces that. Exactly. What we’re trying to do, in a way, is adding a new language to that. So say, linking claps to strobe lights, people hear it and they see something. They see something on the screen
moving in correlation to the sound they’re hearing. That’s the difference between our shows and other shows. There are a lot of audio visual experiences out there, but there aren’t really any tightly integrating what you hear and what you see. That’s what a great concert is, like you said, hearing a snare and seeing the snare being hit as you hear it, or with someone play a guitar. Most of the planet and most of the people at the concert are putting together the experience using what they are taking in visually and sonically, and that’s what we’re trying to play with. You’ve always been very transparent in sharing how your stuff is put together and the technology behind it. In the sleevenotes of (Richie Hawtin DJ mix album) Decks & FX & 909 there’s a diagram illustrating how the tracks overlap and how many measures of each track are used. Why is involving people something you want to do? I want to inspire people by what they are hearing but also maybe give them further information about how things are created, perhaps to get them to try their own version of that idea. Also, electronic music, or music in general, can sometimes be hard to understand. You’ve got all these sounds rhythms and computers involved, it’s almost so transparent you see through it, you’ve really no idea how it was done. So these diagrams i’ve used, or next on page 6 >>
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podcasts, or behind the scenes films work on a number of levels - it helps promote the idea, but also even if people watch something, even if they don’t fully understand it, it makes them feel closer to the creation of that idea, closer to the artist, and to the mindset behind how that thing came to be and I think it leads to a deeper connection to the experience. You’ve mentioned that one of the things that inspired you to go in this direction was Etienne De Crecy’s Cube. Yes.
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Are there any other shows out there that you’ve seen that are trying to do something interesting? I haven’t seen too much that has really blown me away. There’s a lot of big, over the top productions right now, but a lot of it is just the firing back of sound and visuals that just don’t really have any correlation, and that doesn’t really inspire me. But it does feel like there’s a movement toward connecting these things more and more. The best show that i’ve seen, which was very impressive, is the Amon Tobin show. That’s a texture mapping type of thing. It’s a very powerful experience, but it also feels a little bit like a laid-out movie, and seemed a little bit contrived. Did you see the Fever Ray show? No I haven’t. That’s maybe the only other thing i’ve seen recently exploring different territory. It’s more like a piece of theatre. It’s very dark, with a few synced-up standard lamps, two enormous lasers and some costumes. It’s not about the personalities or the people on the stage at all, more about creating an atmosphere. I’ve just written that down and i’m going to check it out.
PETER VAN HOESEN The Belgian producer has some of the dirtiest basslines in the world of techno. RA’s Richard Brophy called up Brussels to find out more about the rising DJ/producer. You know that moment when you can feel that a producer has nailed a sound that they had previously only hinted at? That’s exactly the way I felt when I heard Peter Van Hoesen’s “Trusted.” I had come across Van Hoesen’s music before, but in truth, “Trusted” had piqued my curiosity only because it included a Norman Nodge remix. That version quickly fell by the wayside, however, as the cavernous, grandiose bass of the original version unravelled, amid austere and ominous synths. Trusted and its followup, Casual Care—both on Van Hoesen’s own Time To Express imprint—are underpinned by a grimy, flawed sensibility that proved irresistible. Unsurprisingly, bass has played a central role since the very start of Van Hoesen’s musical journey. As an 11-year-old, he learnt how to play the bass and keyboards after watching a fateful television performance by ‘80s Belgian act Telex. “It was the first time that I had seen a band playing on stage with huge synths—I was fascinated by what I saw,” he explains. Other local developments shaped Van Hoesen’s teenage experiences: The emergence of New Beat during the mid to late ‘80s, an almost uniquely. Belgian pre-acid house dance floor sound, also caught his attention: “The music had an obsession
with bass, even the faster tracks were pitched down. For people of my age, my generation, in Belgium, New Beat is still important and I still like to play slower sets, you can feel the space between the beats and bass.” Van Hoesen feels that there was only a year or two of good releases before New Beat lapsed into self-parody, but it left a lasting impression, and inspired him to start DJing. next page>>
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“At the time, there was nothing like it, it was so powerful, and I had no clue as to what kind of city Detroit was. I loved the basslines in New Beat and Derrick May’s records also had basslines that were very important, but they were different to New Beat. It (New Beat) wasn’t very funky, and that’s what the guys in Detroit had, this magic formula. It was the familiar sound of the machines, mixed with the funk.” By the early ‘90s, Belgium had become the unofficial spiritual home on the continent for electronic dance music. R&S Records and producers like CJ Bolland and Frank de Wulf were releasing a unique version of high-octane techno that inspired the nascent rave/hardcore scene and US artists as well as emerging UK names like Bandulu and Kirk Degiorgio were making their first continental appearances at warehouse parties organised by the BWP organisation. Having attended these parties, Van Hoesen began putting on his own events with friends. He admits that the new wave of hard-edged techno from this period “really had an impact on me,” but as the decade progressed and the music veered into a one-dimensional loopy cul de sac, Van Hoesen started to get bored and turned his attention to production. Inspired by the new wave of German glitchy minimalism emerging from Cologne,
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he set up the experimental/ambient label Foton, and had a number of releases as Object and Vanno. Consequently, Foton forged links with Brussels’ strong visual and performing arts community and they were invited to perform sound installations. “I went totally into that direction and I didn’t do any techno for quite a while,” he explains. “We started to throw these really cool events where we’d start with experimental music, which we presented to an audience lying down, usually with a four speaker setup so they were ‘caught’ in the sound. Then we gradually took it up and changed the music into a more danceable style, whereupon we removed the cushions and had people go from horizontal to vertical, all in one night.” Foton’s reputation for curating unusual events spread, and they were asked to organise parties for other people. They were the first organisers to book the then-unknown Kode9 and Spaceape in Belgium, but eventually Van Hoesen grew tired of the energy required to keep it going. “Foton was most active between 2002 and 2006—it was a big commitment and it didn’t give me the time I needed to concentrate on making music,” he says. “By 2006, it was also becoming more difficult to do these type of events because there were fewer venues and the support for experimental music was falling.” next on page 10 >>
TIME TO EXPRESS
More on Peter Van Hoesen and Time To Express: www.t2x.eu
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Despite this, Van Hoesen believes that Belgium remains one of the creative hotbeds for electronic music, and that techno is instilled in the national psyche. “On the whole, people here are well connected to electronic music. I know people who don’t go out at all but still listen to house and techno at home. They carry that virus with them!” Unfortunately, he also feels that Belgians are classic underachievers. Maybe it’s the fact that the country is sandwiched in between Europe’s two biggest countries that gives them an inferiority complex, but even though it hosts the world’s biggest techno party —I Love Techno in Ghent—and its capital is home to the world-renowned Fuse club, Peter thinks that his peers need a confidence boost. “It’s also part of being Belgian, not realising your potential,” he says. “This is especially true in electronic music; there is a lot of good music being made here, a lot of talented people, but they just don’t believe in themselves enough. There is a tight community around Dr Vinyl, the last record store in Brussels, and some of the music the people in that group are making has blown me away. Fuse is also one of the beacons for techno in Europe,” he adds, “and in the past few years, the club has had more to boast about than ever before.” Yet despite these claims, Van Hoesen could never be described as immodest or arrogant. Softly-spoken and considered, his persona
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seems at odds with the brutally effective, surging basslines that characterise tracks like “Casual Care,” “Empire in Decline” and “Face of Smoke.” It’s the sound of someone that is wholly confident in what they’re doing. “By 2005/2006, I had tried every possible genre, so many musical directions—breaks, bass, dubstep— and I felt a bit lost because the music I was making just wasn’t satisfying,” he explains. “I asked myself what I did best, where my heart was, and the answer was techno. I had flirted with dubstep a bit, but it wasn’t for me—techno is so much a continental sound and once I’d made the decision to stop making dubstep, it felt like I was coming home, but I had all this extra baggage with me that I’d picked up along the way and that helped shape what I do.”
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“I know I have to be my best at that time, and if I see a response, then all goes down easier. People go crazy, and I want to go crazy with them!� Donato Dozzy
Full article on page 13
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DONATO DOZZY What’s it like playing at the Labyrinth festival? What feelings or emotions can be generated by an event like this? It’s the total ad complete interaction between one person on stage and 2000 people who are in front of you a who are exactly the same as you are. It’s a massive amount of energy poured upon you, and you can only pour it back on them. It is a real loop with no negative vibes whatsoever, it’s all about people who want to have fun and create something special with you, making you feel at home. Emotionally, it is an unparalleled party. Regarding the setting, a wonderful natural reserve – but wherever they choose to hold the Labyrith is special, it is a place where sound can reach unparalleled heights in terms of cleanness and purity (thanks to a state-of-the-art Funktion One setup), wher spaces are well-distributed (access is limited to 2000 people), and where all DJs who happen to play tend to remain friends. Another important thing is that the festival is made to create a real link between the acts. Management (Russ, in particular) makes sure that each artist plays at a certain time, because they know he can be at his
best at that certain time. And it’s how it goes. No one is in his place by chance, we are players, we are Russ’ records. He’s the best DJ I know! So the management looks into every detail to the excess? I won’t say to the excess. It’s just that everything is as it should be. Do you think there is a sort of “snobbish” feeling towards other genres, considering the closeness in styles DJs are proposing in this festival? next page>>
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No, let’s clear this up. This is an event dominated by… ritual music, psychedelic music, and at the same time there are some DJs coming to the Labyrinth who don’t play that kind of music, but prefer to play “lighter” rhythms completing the sonic cycle with their own color. On the other hand, attending a four day event where the same kind of music is played over and over again is not that cool. I can tell you that there is a perfect balance between the different acts. Labyrinth is a jigsaw puzzle where every piece is carefully placed to be perfect. For some years now, Japanese market has been seen as a sort of “restricted area”, so much that some producers publish their albums exclusively there. Do you think that Japanese public is more adapt to receive these musical inputs? What’s the difference between them and the others? I believe that music fans from every nation have nothing to envy on Japanese fans. What differentiates them is that they probably are a little bit more of a collector, and that they follow music more deeply, both from a technical and a musical point of view. There are still strong record stores (like Disk Union) and they sell a lot of vinyl on top of the other formats. I can tell you about a musical instruments shop called “4G” where I saw at least 5 refurbished “909”s and as much “808”s and sold one next to the other, many other vintage instruments and tons of turntables that people buy. This attention to music makes them follow all the foreign artists who play there, and they know a lot! I had the chance to talk to many of them over the years and they know an awful lot of things. Can you tell us 3 dance tracks and 3 ambient tracks from your selection which represented the festival’s emotional top? Wow... let’s start with the ambient ones. The ambient set had its moments, first of all because I was brave enough to play a track I never played in front of an audience. It is called “Rude Boy”, and it is a track I produced which, unlike the things I usually do that are pretty much instrumental, is sung by great friend Habib. I wasn’t sure it could get a good feedback, I was afraid of judgment, because it took me 4 years to make it. I must say that Chris from Mnml Ssgs was the one who pushed me to play this track, and I outright thank him. next page>>
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He convinced me after listening to it some months ago in London.So I thought about it… It came out like that and it was surely one of the most emotional moments of the set. The second one is “Global Communiation – 14:31”, we talked about it before, it moved both me and the audience. The third one is a track by Mike Parker called “Arena”, which will soon be published by Aquaplano. I felt the air thicken. People stopped talking and “took in” all of the track’s frequencies for six minutes without making a sound. Let’s move to the dance tracks. One of the strongest moments was when I put on “alone”
by Shura on 3B or Cio D’or’s “Pssst!” by Motoguzzi Reocrds. It is a track with subtle frequencies that kinda lull you, but with a robust bass track. I saw people gasping! Lastly, I will say “Blue” by David Alvarado by Strive. The people went crazy on this one crazy on this one! I am sure I’m forgetting something, and maybe the end was the real exciting part. What track did you close to? The last track I played is“Classic 909” by Scott Grooves for Natural Midi, a track with a Roland 909-ceated rhythm structure and a really sweet melody on top of that. As soon as I finished playing, I turned the turntable off and it started raining!
Attending one of your sets means getting completely off reality and becoming one with the main focus of electronic music: the journey. How much preparation goes into your sets? What I’d like to understand is the relationship you create between the records you play and how long does it take for one to become part of your great selections? It’s important to point out that nothing is prepared in my sets, everything goes with the flow. I usually start by choosing a “color”, a basic theme based on my mood that day, and once I start everything goes on following things happening around me. There is no setlist in my bag. I always try to know the tracks I play as well as I can, I listen to them over and over until I create a relationship with them. I take mental notes about instruments they use or frequencies they generate. This way I can match tracks easily. In can also tell you that I love digging out the story behind each record, tracking info about the techniques it was produced with, the instruments used, the graphic choices, etc. Let’s say that I try to research both on felling and on dynamics. We can isolate two major sections in your selections, the first based on hypnotic and “wrapping” techno, and the second based on downbeat and softer atmospheres. I’d like you to describe us the sensations you get by playing these two different styles.
On the “stronger”, faster set my body and my mind work in a faster, more urgent way. I am stressed during a techno set because I know that I have to go full throttle. What do you look for in the audience at that time? I look for trust! The audience must be won from scratch every time and that’s what creates stress. Again, I know I have to be my best at that time, and if I see a response, then all goes down easier. People go crazy, and I want to go crazy with them! You have a craftier way of managing the audience, while most DJs use some kind of “trick” to create that feeling of starting over and explosion. You just lead them in state of trance using simple tone shifts. You’re right. As far as I’m concerned the variation in the detail is more important than the one on the mass. You can have the break using just a straight bass drum waiting for the next arpeggio. This is my way of feeling rhythm and I understand that not everyone wants to join this kind of group experience. In the ambient set, times loosen, and I don’t have to make people dance. So the pleasure stems from matching sounds, knowing that the audience is relaxed and listens to you. It is a real ambient sonorization, the true flipside of dance. These are sounds you can easily find in a techno set, only without the obligation to be danced to.
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What do you think is the maximum time frame beyond which you will not play your set? I was once asked to be part of an event where each DJ had 20 minutes to play. It was so surreal that I enjoyed it! Express all of yourself in 20 minutes... Are you talking about Combo Cut? Exactly. It was held at Rome’s Metaverso. They had this crazy idea to have the DJs play one after another at 20 minutes intervals. The nice thing was that everyone got in the right mood, so the mini-sets were all very inspired and everything turned out to be a lot of fun. You know, what bothers me is when you’re called in a place you know you don’t belong, where you don’t fit in with the
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line-up or the general mood, and when you get there you’re told to play for an hour. That is a hard time to manage, you can’t express a thing in a time like that. In fact, I am quite scared when they ask me to play for an hour, because I know that it will turn out as the hardest set. This is even more true if you deal with psychedelic music, because the audience has to adapt to certain sounds, and they could have a hard time getting in the right mood and feel you music the wrong way. So I was very afraid approaching this event, like it happened in the past, and my sound reflected that. This makes you play tracks with a lot of attitude, “thicker” tracks, so it’s hard to play things I like sometimes.
I love tracks I can play from the third hour, when the people is “taken in”. You can do everything, obviously, but things like that don’t excite me. Where do you buy the music you play? Do you still feel the charm of spending the day digging through the records in a record shop? Well, yes. I can tell you about the time I spent at Remix in Rome, as well as those spent at Hardwax, where I dug through every shelf. It’s great, the record shop is a socializing place. You can meet people like you, people who share your passion. And then there is the feeling you create with the owner. I grew up with thing like these, and I don’t like just ordering things over the web. Do you think your
sound has achieved a maturity such as you can tell that it represents you completely? I’ll never be able to be so clear-minded about my music, and I couldn’t say something like that. You know, some times I start many different projects that remain unfinished because of lack of enthusiasm. This happens quite a lot of times, and if we go searching in my hard drive we’ll find dozens of unfinished tracks. I think everything depends on the mood I’m in. Sometimes I am excited and I finish a track in a short time, while many other times it remains only a spark that never caught fire. Which artist buying every time is not going to disappoint you? Robert Henke.
CLAUDIO PRC Just In a few years Claudio PRC has become one of the most attractive names in the European techno scene, the sardinian producer has designed the perfect sound to stimulate minds and bring a state of trance, in the strictest sense of word, fascinating and beautiful minimalism with lots of subliminal message. He recently joined forces with fellow Ness in the project The Gods Planet, in this interview he talks about his particular vision of techno and its upcoming projects.
Listening to your music we can find two very different sides, one based on ambient music and other into techno. Do you think you’re hiding from conventional sounds or maybe it’s instinctive for you to experiment with electronics?
The decision to create a music based on two distinct parts, first of all comes from the creative
process that I have adopted in recent years, experimentation in my work has a primary role and sound research, as well as being part of this trial, is obviously a means to detach myself from what is conventional and already given, a method also to create my own and distinctive sound.
Obviously some tracks sounds more complex than others. How would you say has been
the evolution of your sound? Where you look for inspiration?
Evolution was and is a spontaneous process. What I was looking for came in a natural way. I studied and thought about how to get there, what were the right way to take, and these choices have worked well because I got the result I wanted, the sound that most represents me at this moment that is
itself evolving, it is always in motion.The basic concept may remain the same but the sound changes, evolves, and with research and study on this is always possible to reach a higher stage. The search and processing of any sound material, the complete focus on what I always get, inspiration and advices received from the words of people next page>>
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w h o are close to me or I have met only for one night were really important not only for my music but also for an human and emotional growth. What made you interested in electronic music? What artists do you think inspired you to have a try with this? Surely the search for something new, the curiosity that leads me to discover something new and different to what I already know. This happens with everything, and of course also with the music. When I grew up there was a time when I needed to detach my self from what my peers were listening, so I became interested in electronic music, I saw this as something new, like something that was ahead of the rest, and I keep to be always of the same opinion. I will never forget the first plays like those of Plastikman and Pansonic, gave me a lot of energy, their philosophy, their concepts, referred me to this trajectory, it was a beautiful moment in my life. And who are your favorites now? Obviously after years continue to be the artists who influenced me the most, their music is timeless and continue to give me something, in addition, all the people with whom I am in close (artistic and human) contact as the whole Prologue, Aconito, Sonic Groove, Stroboscopic Artefacts, KRD crews and Edit - Select. Artists I don’t know personally but I prefer are undoubtedly James Ruskin and Regis. These are just some names but I love more and more. You published one of your early works in a Spanish label “Suara”, I guess you will know something about the Spanish electronic scene. Did you follow any span ish producer? I’ve always found the Spanish Techno scene very cool and interesting. Apart from international Techno pioneer Oscar Mulero, I follow a lot Tadeo, I admire him very much. Lately every summer I play in Spain, I am guest in a great festival in Torreblanca, Test Festival, that is one of the best places I ever play, and there I met great Spanish artist as Dosem and Bension which I respect a lot. next on page 20 >>
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2012.06.15-17 Live: Bruno
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Pronsato, Calli, Few Nolder, Markas Palubenka, Moon Disco, Umiko, Zulusas. DJs: Claudio PRC, Hallucin, Loranas Vaitkus, Mantas T, Pagalve, Saulty, Split Pulse, Shn
Live:
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Demdike Stare, Dataline, Sina., IJO, Flesh Flash, Luumm, Mmpsuf, Sraunus, the Picturesque Episodes DJs: Ernestas Sadau, El_T, Maida Bazaar, Noid, Paul Nevermind, Pranza, Romanas G, Rook
LOW Live: Brokenchord, Rushkeys, Zoé Zoe DJs: 2562, June Miller, Direktorius, Ebo, EK, Hathor, Intakz, Nayas, Rhodopsin, Roadsman, Silhoutte, Simao, Vezhlas, VAIPER, TAG HIGH DJs: Ampulė, LSAR, Mountak, Samuel Tange, Synthsoulsizer AND
MORE TO COME
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You were in Sónar, in Barcelona, two years ago. How was the experience? Yes, I went to Sonar for the first time in 2010, was a very special experience. What struck me most was the part during the day. I saw original and special performances such as Moodymann, all in an atmosphere of relax and serenity. Instead Plastikman live in the night was one of the finest performances I’ve ever seen. Until a few years, here in Spain seemed required to view the rest of Europe for quality electronic music. It’s the same in Italy? or there have always been a strong scene In Italy? There have always been very strong scenes that have had a strong influence in the world, just think Rome, from Marco Passarani to Lory D, or what after Elettronica Romana created. Neapolitan equally, with artists such as Danilo . You were in Sónar, in Barcelona, two years ago. How was the experience? Yes, I went to Sonar for the first time in 2010, was a very special
“The Italian scene is quite confusing. It ‘s always difficult to propose something different and innovative.” experience. What struck me most was the part during the day. I saw original and special performances such as Moodymann, all in an atmosphere of relax and serenity. Instead Plastikman live in the night was one of the finest performances I’ve ever seen. Until a few years, here in Spain seemed required to view the rest of Europe for quality electronic music. It’s the same in Italy? or there have always been a strong scene In Italy? There have always been very strong scenes that have had a strong influence in the world, just think Rome, from Marco Passarani to Lory D, or what after Elettronica Romana created. Neapolitan equally, with artists such as Danilo Vigorito, Rino Cerrone and Markantonio, and the new Joseph Capriati, Ascion and D. Carbone. Also the new Sardinian electronic scene is growing more and more, featuring different and unique styles, I think Sardinia is the most interesting scene now in Italy. How is the electronic music scene in your country? What is the most popular kind of music there? The Italian scene is quite confusing. It ‘s
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always difficult to propose something different and innovative. Most club owners don’t dare to propose something different, the artistic side is often overshadowed, and most of the parties where I go are bad drafts of what was done in Europe two or three years ago. I don’t feel the spirit of the club culture that characterized the years when I started go to the clubs, and the efforts that I see, however, from who really want to change things, unfortunately are not enough. Surely you’ve meet many famous artists this years. There is someone you enjoyed specially to meet? All the artists I met are great people with whom I shared moments that for different reasons I’ll never forget, without exception! Who has really hit my soul, however, are surely Cio D’ Or and Surgeon. How is your creative process in the studio? Software or analog instruments? Very simple, unfortunately I haven’t the possibility to use hardware, then the process is PC / Software / (modest) Studio Monitors / Portable Recorder/ Ideas. I think means at the end are not so much important, you can find the right ways to get what you want anyway.