Flashmob

The Milan producers on an incredible roll launch their brand new Flashmob Records label

Interview : Dan Prince


Danny, Alessandro welcome to DMCWORLD – where on planet dance are you today?

“Hey Dan, we are in Ibiza just about to go to Sonica Radio to play a live hour set from there live on Be@TV and then off to play the “Lost In Ibiza” boat party…”

A very exciting few weeks for you at the moment – so much going on guys! Let’s kick off with the launch of your super new label Flashmob Records. So, why now and what are the plans…?

“We think now is a good time for us to explore new aspects of sound and we think fans and people from the industry know Flashmob enough to know what we are about and what they can expect from us to start building a platform of our own. I think the industry needs pure good music rather that people chasing charts so that’s why we’ve started this new adventure.”

Who are some of the artists you will be welcoming into the label?

“The label will be about Flashmob for now but in the future, you never know…”

The first release is your brand new ‘Who/Do You Do’ EP… please talk us through the sound and history of the tunes…”

“We loved the idea of creating new tracks with a four hands live method we use. We needed to experiment new ways of arranging our records using our hardware, In fact, we have created our new drums and bassline via our MS20 filtering the signal path and giving it some drive with the gain in. We love doing very RAW stuff at the moment with cool vocals, it’s our bread and butter these days.”

Word on the grapevine is that there are some more releases from you guys on the Ibadan, Objektivity, DFTD and Defected labels? What can you tell us about these…?

“Yes…we’re very happy to be featuring on some new labels and we’re very enthusiastic to do more with our family label Defected/DFTD. Jerome Sydenham has remixed one of our tracks and it is a great honour to be on IBADAN…the track we are talking about reveals a more techno side of our studio work. We are working on many new singles for our new label Flashmob Records, Defected and DFTD and since we are mixing the DFTD Vol.2 for Simon Dunmore’s new label some of these might be found there…although, the majority of the tracks in the mix are going to be from the DFTD catalogue. We are also building a European tour around this compilation so it’s looking really exciting.”

A cool photo of you stuck in some random airport the other day with the caption ‘That’s DJ life’.” Come on guys, airports, hotels and hanging around is a small price to pay for one of the best jobs on the planet surely?

Danny: “Alessandro sleeps everywhere and at any hour of day…I took this photo smiling since they had just announced the boarding and he was imploring me to give him another minute’s sleep…”

Best and worst thing about living in Milan?

A: “Best thing is my wife and my favourite Japanese restaurant Iyo…worst thing is living in Milan!”

D: “Best thing is it takes you very little time to get to an airport…the worst thing is the bread (I come from a place in the centre of Italy were bread is taken very seriously…as all food is in general).”

What is the current top 10 you are spinning?

Head High – Megatrap (Mix Mix)

Mark Henning – Exit Acid

Nina Kraviz – Hotter Than July

Head High – Think It

Alex Jones – Frizza

Robert Hood – And Then We Planned Our Escape

De Sluwe Vos – Poltergeist

Youandewan – Alright Son

Mr G – Tutonic

Partial Arts – Taifa (EM Extended Mix)

A recent quote from a certain superstar DJ…“I believe true DJing is actually an art, but it’s a dying art, as everyone is pushing the sync button…it’s a real shame when you see a ‘DJ’ plug his laptop in and call this DJing. Music will always evolve but sometimes not in the best way.” What are your thoughts on that?

“We think if you take the emotion away of putting yourself in a position were you can make mistakes and you do what you’re doing in a different way from how you were doing it when you were dreaming of doing it as a kid…YOU’RE DOING IT FOR THE WRONG F****REASON!!  DJing is about giving emotions to yourself and others at the same time…and it needs to be real, if not Dan, we’d all be actors.”

Your ‘Need In Me’ release was arguably the sound of Summer 2012 in Ibiza. What are your plans for the white isle this year?

“We have been to Sankeys and Booom! and playing Sonica and Lost in Ibiza this week and it’s just the beginning of July…so it’s a very full and interesting Ibiza season for us. We are also going to play Tribal Sessions with Darius and Booom again…I feel there are some big changes happening on the island.”

What makes Ibiza such a special place?

“It’s the place where people go to give their all…you can’t get any better. We did Booom! for Defected three weeks ago and we did the closing set from 5 till 7. It was amazing…truly one of the best gig of 2014. One of our favourite DJs, Marco Carola, was dancing to our music in the crowd…how crazy is that?”

Who are the DJs you love bumping into on the circuit – who do you have the most fun with?

“Mr.G, Hot Since 82, Dyed Sondoroum, MJ Coles, Guti, Darius Syrossian…we meet loads…but it’s hard to beat Dennis Ferrer…he’s the man hahah! Really, really funny…he came to visit us with Andre Hommen at Ocean Drive in Ibiza to talk business and we had the best time.”

Tell us about your studio set up, who excels in what department?

“We could talk forever about this subject but I really don’t wanna give too much away…we have our way of doing things and we do everything together…we love hardware and working in a very relaxed way…that is the key…we have a Moog Voyager, Roland DB303, Access VirusTI, Corg Ms20, Nordlead2x, Juno106 etc…”

Away from dance music, who are the artists you are checking out at the moment?

D: “Various like Depeche Mode, Royksopp, Moderat etc…stuff like that.”

A: “I listen to old stuff like Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Sinatra, Gershwin…”

The best up and coming producer you have seen this year?

Julien Sandre.”

When was the last time you had an argument about music?

“Every day all day…”

And finally, what is coming out next from you studio wise?

“Flashmob Records No.2 is nearly finished and we are collaborating with some new singers for new singles. Our release schedule looks like this…

July> Flashmob Feat. Kevin Knapp/ Hector Morales (WHo/Do You Do) Flashmob Records

July>> Toddla T – Pandoras Box (Flashmob Live Mix) Dafected

July/ August >> Gecko (Overdrive) (Flashmob Remix) FFRR

August>> JPChronic –  It’s ok (Flashmob Paradise Remix) only Vinyl on Ibiza Chronovision

August/September Flashmob (Untitled Dub) + Jerome Sydenham Remix on IBADAN

September>> Flashmob Second Release on Flashmob Records with Dino Lenny and BoDj

October > Launching our label nights in a top club in the UK … still to reveal

November>> DFTD Compilation Vol. 2 Mixed by Flashmob + Europe Tour 

December>> Singles and Remixes/edits from the DFTD Compilation Vol. 2 released on DFTD singularly.

December>> Flashmob Third Release on Flashmob Records…”

http://flashmobmusicgroup.com
https://soundcloud.com/flashmob-djs
http://www.residentadvisor.net/dj/flashmob