Italian born Lorenzo Chiabotti, currently parked in Berlin, has been a rising star for some time jumping from impressive club residencies across Europe. A hidden gem who has been known to manufactures a reputable live performance amongst seamless dj sets. His clear appreciation for the eclectic sub genres in dance music has taken him the distance and he is not afraid to pool sounds of funk into a techno infused framework perfect for dance-orientated execution. We join Lorenzo of Vinyl Club and Delooped records for an exclusive interview.
Hi Lorenzo, thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions for Meoko! How are you today?
Im fine thank you, more than happy to answer to your questions.
How was your summer? Have you been busy?
My summer was ok, I had a really nice time playing every month endless sessions at Club Der Visionaere, I went to play italy and in Moscow @ Pravda ; first time for me in Russia and during the week I was in my studio making music, I could say it was a perfect season.
You are from Turin in Italy? How was it growing up there?
Turin is great, when I was 17 Years old, the illegal rave party scene was huge, a lot of "tribe" from the UK like "Spiral tribe" or "Okupe " from France chose Turin for big illegal rave parties. Turin has plenty of empty abandoned factories, Turin was a city based on cars manufactures , with the crisis a lot of companies left to other countries leaving amazing empty spaces, I had a lot of fun discovering my city through old buildings and for sure I learnt what electronic music and techno is.
Do you still play a lot at Doctor Sax? We heard you have been a resident there for quiet a while?
Actually no, lol , I was resident for only one season there, then I left for Berlin. As I said Turin is an amazing city for Djs, Clubs and Raves. Doctor Sax is a magic place where djs and clubbers are free to express themselves, open only in the morning, great after party, I wish I could bring my Berliner friends there.
Was electronic music popular at the time you lived there?
Yes Sir! The Rave and Club scene was really big at the end of the 90's. When I went to my first RAVE Party I already knew about Drum Machines and electronic instruments from my music studies, in one of this huge rave party I heard KAOS playing a live set, only machines (at that time no softwares were yet invented to play live) that rave changed my life.
Also the club scene was "kick ass" at that time, Turin's promoters brought to the city international talent like Villalobos or Lucian’s live set, I think even before he started his label Cadenza.
Turin definitely has an underground soul.
What or who influenced you to start doing music?
When I was a kid, my house was always full of records and cds, classical music and Psychedelic Rock was what I was listening to, thanks to my father and my big brother. At 13 yo my mother noticed that I was really in to the music and she bought me a drum set; after some weeks, I guess she had enough of my no sense of grooves and she sent me to a music school.
So I could say my mom started all of this :)
You have studied at the Music School of Art? What did you study there?
It was a fusion jazz music school, i've learnt a lot there, I could say every thing I know now about music theory , grooves and harmony I learnt there ; the big change of my life came when I started to study "step sequencing" and "midi programs" at school .
I din't want to play drums anymore unless it was a pad on a Sampler Machine, it was like a revolution in my Brain, at the beginning of 2000 I left My Band , sold my drum and bought straight after tha at sequencer, mixer and Sample machine!
Also the Dancefloor taught me a lot about music, I spent so many hours of my life listening to good music and checking the reactions of the crowd.
You now live in Berlin? Do you like it there? What pushed you to move there?
What Pushed me here? easy to say Mr Luc Ringeisen owner of Vinyl Club recordings, he told me and helped me to move here; I met Luc at his record store in Ibiza in 2006 , at that time we were both living on the island , in 2008 Luc left ibiza to go to Berlin and since then he always told me "Lorenzo move to berlin you will like it u will love it ! " in 2010 after the season in Ibiza i've decided to move to Berlin and since then i'm here :-) It was the decision that made everything better and gave a sense to my carrier.
Do I like it here? there is no other city on this planet where I could live except Berlin.
Its normal for a producer living in berlin to get inspiration 24 h / 7, in every clubs the line ups are amazing , I mean here djs Like, Zip , Ricardo Mike shannon , Jan Krueger etc are resident Djs in Berlin.
The club culture here is so important (and big business for a few investors ) of course the quality of the music is really high and for musicians it means a lot.
What is your favorite club to play at in Berlin and what is it that makes Berlin so different from other cities?
My favorite Club to play in Berlin is CDV for sure, long sessions , amazing ambient and friends, where i'm enjoying a lot of parties is at About Blank but definitely Berghain is where I like to rave (i'm a big fan of intelligent Scandinavian techno)
A lot of people move to berlin to reach goals and realize their dreams, here it is still possible, this is what makes this city special, alongisde affordable rents and the size of the city is still ok (not too big) which helps too.
The club industry is part of the economy of the city, the level is really high . There is no closing time which makes every single event special, people can enjoy "the clubbing" experience on another level.
When did you decide to start playing live sets? Do you prefer to Dj or does it just provide you with a different angle to play music?
I made my first live set when I was 18 years old and I've played it on my first gig ever in a Rave party In Turin.
At the moment I prefer Djing instead of playing live, Djing puts me closer to the crowd during events, I spent a lot of time in music research and buy a lot of Vinyl & Digital, for sure I have more fun when i'm djing; I still like to play liv, but now I need time to prepare a new one, last time i've played live was 4 years ago o_0!
You are in the studio a lot at the moment, how is everything going in there?
Luc Ringeisen and I have moved in a new two room sstudio at the beginning of the summer and we love it, we got our own room, we share machines, skills, etc. I spend more time in the studio than at home, its first time in my life I found a good set up that help my workflow.
What production techniques and hardware do you use, tools and plug-ins?
Basically when I start a new track I just play live with my machines (I got an AKAI MPC 2500 , KORG electribe , MFB Drum Machine , Moog, etc ) every thing is plugged to my sound card , pretty easy for me then to record every session live and then re-edit the arrangement on Logic.
Im an AKAI MPC lover, I resample a lot, every single beat comes from my fingers hitting the pads of the MPC (yes I was drummer ) this makes my productions impulsive and harmonic on the same time, when i'm djing I play a lot my unreleased tracks this makes me understand how importanti t is when im in the studio to create the tracks as live set using the knobs of the machine instead of using the mouse and some plug ins, it's a different feeling and arrangement is humanized .
What can you tell us about your forthcoming releases?
Today Moscow records sent me the Masters of "Adnur EP" with a remix by Archie Hamilton, it's my own Ep including 3 originals mix and one remix of Archie, masters sounds great ,more than looking forward to release it , I think is one of the best release i've made since now .
On top of that I have two releases on Vekton Black and Vekton Music confirmed, (thanks to Mariano Mateljan & Daniel Madlung to make this happen)
Unfortunately can not speak yet about some releases, I just can say next autumn / winter I will release a lot.
We know you have future projects with Yaya from Desolat and Maki Polne? What are these projects about? Does this have to do with your upcoming release on Vekton Musik?
Yes I 've made both releases on Vekton with Maki Polne.
Maki is one of my best friends here in Berlin, we spent a lot of time in the studio together (we have already 3 releases together on amazing labels like Vinyl Club and Delooped) , Making music with him it's like when you go to your best friend's house to play xbox all afternoon , well instead of wasting time on video games we make music , we start always to create a track from zero; first we smoke a joint and then "we let the magic start" ; some time we go too far away (yes we smoke too much ), but every closed track we made is something unique , totally different of what I usually do alone .
Maki and I Play often together here in Berlin B2B, we called it "MPLC".
Yaya …
Yaya and I come from the same city, Turin, we know each others since years , we were living together in Ibiza for two seasons (crazy house ..crazy seasons lol ) last winter he came to Berlin , we did one track (GrandeTosse ) that we just released on Kina Music.
Was really good to work with him and really funny, in May he came back to Berlin to spend the whole summer here.
Yes It took the whole summer but we made 4 tracks .
Yaya is a "Machine studio master " basically what we did is "AKAI MPC vs Machine Studio " the 4 tracks we made are groovy & dirty , I literally can't wait to test them in clubs.
How did you feel when you heard your promo was played all over Ibiza?
Hmmmm that is a nice story because I was there.
Was 2007 I went to ibiza for the season with a cd of unreleased tracks i've made during the winter. I gave this cd to Luc Ringeisen at his record store , after two weeks he told me that he will release 3 tracks of mine on his label (vinyl club)
that summer I was working as runner in Dc10 to pay my rent, was monday afternoon when I heard my track played by Sossa (dj resident of Circoloco) in the terrace , i 've said to one random girl next to me that I've made the track that was playing… she didn't believe :-( It was strange feeling because i've seen the whole dc10 dancing to my promo , but I was working and I couldn't fully enjoy that special moment.
Some weeks after I heard the same track played by Tania and Clive Harry in Dc10 and Matt John in Monza at Space.
Now I can say that i'm really happy and I was lucky to be there .
And last question, if you could only listen to one genre of music for the rest of your life, what would it be?
DUB please !!!! from Dub reggae to Dub techno
Catch Lorenzo play next in London at Half Baked
LORENZO CHIABOTTI EXCLUSIVE PODCAST HERE..
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