INTO THE MIND OF PACO OSUNA
Club4 has been going for a decade now. What do you think has been the key to its longevity?
Originally Club4 was conceived by Marco Carola, Adam Beyer, Christian Smith and myself in order to create a club made by DJs where artists enjoy playing without any pressure, building a more friendly and informal atmosphere allowing everyone to have fun - both the DJs and the crowd.
TOM SWOON LIVE FROM DJ MAG HQ THIS FRIDAY
Tom Swoon's interest in music started at a very young age. At 17, he discovered dance music and was inspired by artists like Deadmau5 and Daft Punk.
Over the next few years, Swoon taught himself to spin and saved up enough cash to score a proper DJ set-up, transforming himself from a bedroom DJ to full-blown pro — his devoted fans voted him in at number 46 in last year's Top 100 DJs poll.
2016 set to be another great year for Swoon, and we are lucky enough to have him performing a live DJ set from the DJ Mag office this Friday!
WATCH FLASHMOB LIVE FROM DJ MAG HQ
WAX ON, WAX OFF!
ItaloJohnson are real party starters. That is basically all we know about the mysterious Berlin based trio, but it’s all we need to know.
Whether playing underground basement parties or headlining festivals, threading together house vibes or unloading heavy techno weapons, they know how to make the dancefloor a visceral, jacking place filled with many happy boys and girls.
WATCH WEISS LIVE FROM DJ MAG HQ THIS FRIDAY
DANCE MUSIC GOES CLASSICAL!
It’s music that stirs the soul, brings a lump to the throat and a tremble to even the stiffest upper lip. For a whole generation, ‘Strings Of Life’, ‘Go’ and ‘You Got The Love’ are our equivalent of ‘Jerusalem’, ‘Land Of Hope and Glory’ and the national anthem the classical standards unfurled every year during the Last Night of the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. A place, you might assume, where house music would go down as well as Ben Klock dropping Handel’s ‘Messiah’ at Berghain.
DISCLOSURE: IT’S ALL RELATIVE
Howard and Guy Lawrence, the Disclosure brothers, show up for their promotional appearances the way you would for a job interview: professional and prepared. Fresh-faced and well groomed, at 21 and 24, respectively, the two’s experienced demeanor is similar to a career musician of their combined ages.
Poll 2015: Nicky Romero
For Nicky Romero, 2015 was another typically hectic year. Playing at all the biggest festivals across the world, including Ultra Miami, Europe and Japan, at EDC Las Vegas and Tomorrowland in Brazil and Belgium, the DJ/producer still found time to drop the first installment in his new ‘Lighthouse’ trilogy of productions.
Nicky also knuckled down to get his Protocol label bubbling more than ever before.
“We’ve got some seriously great talent on our roster,” he says, “and we had our 50th release at the beginning of the summer. We’re also taking our Protocol nights around the world, and they’re always great fun. I’m so proud of everything that is coming out there.”
Questions Top100 DJs 2015 - Jon Dommett - 2015-10-20 16:34
Poll 2015: Chuckie
Dutch house titan and last month’s DJ Mag cover star Chuckie is going through something of a reinvention. The Dirty Dutch superstar, real name Clyde Sergio Narain, has recently been dabbling in ‘traphall’, aka trap x dancehall — the genre he’s now spearheading.
Speaking about the last 12 months, Chuckie reveals he’s had an amazing year. “I travelled around the world many times and played some of the biggest festivals in the world,” he says.
Having always embraced a multitude of genres, he has this year debuted his Metamorphosism world tour — a mega showcase of floor-fillers spanning between five and nine hours, and an antidote to the (allegedly sometimes) pre-recorded 45-minute festival set.
Despite having encountered many corners of the globe in 2015, Chuckie’s only lament is that he wishes he “could have had more time in the studio. It was almost impossible to combine it with my hectic tour schedule.”
In our cover story, over a cup of builder’s tea, he admitted to flying 452 times last year, and he explains how “all flight attendants and pilots are allowed to fly only a certain amount of time because of safety measures. We all know that DJs fly way more than whatever is healthy”, the chameleonic producer finishes. FELICITY MARTIN
Questions Top100 DJs 2015 - Jon Dommett - 2015-11-16 14:44
Poll 2015: Disclosure
We know what you’re going to say: ‘Disclosure aren’t real DJs’. While they are predominantly a live outfit, they do DJ a lot, especially at their Wild Life shows, and considering DJing is generally pressing a succession of buttons these days, no one can accuse Disclosure of not pressing buttons — given the size and complexity of their live shows.
2015 has been a busy year for the Lawrence brothers; they scored a No.1 album with ‘Caracal’, a collaborative album that saw old faces like Sam Smith rub shoulders with new artists like Lion Babe.
As well as a new album, they’ve somehow found the time to put on their own festival, Wild Life, in Shoreham (near Brighton), and more recently Las Vegas, and they’ve also been quietly creating their own underground hit factory with their Method White imprint that has seen a spate of club smashes from Jonas Rathsman, with ‘Wolfbane’, MJ Cole with ‘Bouldaz’, and more recently Eats Everything’s pulverising rerub of Tiga vs Audion’s ‘Dancing’.
Who knows what else the brothers have in store for the rest of the year. Don’t bet against a raft of killer remixes of Caracal’s juiciest cuts, a new live show, which is even more impressive that their last from what we’ve seen, and a few surprises too.
ANDREW RAFTER