Interview

Rising star Alice Clark knows her way around Ibiza. She’s lived on the island since she was 17, spending her time in the studio during the winter and playing non-stop gigs throughout the warmer months. 

Chuckie is a man always on the move. One of the original pioneers of the Dutch house movement, Chuckie (real name Clyde Sergio Narain) has made an indelible mark on dance music, creating one of the globe’s most recognisable party brands with his imprint-cum-club-tour, Dirty Dutch. 

It’s thanks to Dirty Dutch’s success that he’s always on the road, taking a whopping 400 flights last year alone. He’s got 175 shows on the cards for this year, including his usual residencies in Las Vegas, LA and beyond.

Billing his sound as “romantic techno”, Kölsch is a name that many clubbers know and love. He’s had two massive LPs on ultra-cool German imprint Kompakt in the last few years, plus spun everywhere from South America to Australia, and now Kölsch (real name: Rune Reilly Kölsch) is set to take over the White Isle several times throughout the season. 

“Do you mind if I play this while we talk?” 

Some things in life just happen; the stars align or elements combine for a perfect chemical reaction. That's Pan-Pot. Meeting in their early 20s by chance in 2003 at Sound & Audio Engineering school (SAE) in Berlin, the duo immediately established a bond like no other. 

Part-German and part-Italian, techno DJ/producer and Aras label owner Andre Galluzzi did try living in London a couple of years ago, but many of his connections and compadres reside in Berlin. “At the moment it's better for me living here,” he tells DJ Mag from Berlin. “I really like London, but it's a little bit easier for me living here. Definitely both cities for electronic music are the addresses for Europe.”

“Are you always this happy,” asks one of the three men dressed in head-to-toe black facing DJ Mag in a semicircle. They are Moderat, Berlin’s de facto techno supergroup comprised of Apparat (Sascha Ring) and Modeselektor (Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary). We are sitting in Tin Pan Alley Studios, named after New York’s turn of the 20^th century music-publishing epicenter. In an appropriate update, it’s now a recording studio with DJ classes. 

He’s built a musical empire on DiY ethics, hard work, punk rock drive and lots and lots of cakes. As he prepares to headline the DJ Mag Miami party this month, we investigate whether it's possible for the Dim Mak man to please the public AND satisfy his deeper creative drive…