Interview with Emanuele Esposito

Hey Emanuele, how are you, what’s good and bad in your world?

Hi Guys, I’m very fine in this period, thanks! Surely the last 2 pandemic years have been very hard for everyone. For those who work with the music, parties and social contacts, this is the main part of our life, so I can say we’ve missed daily oxygen in that period.

Anyway it seems that the sun is shining again finally 🙂

Introduce yourself and tell us how you got to where you have in your career?

I was born in Naples (Italy), I started as a DJ in the early 90s, and in 2000 I did my first steps as a producer. Above all I need to say that my luck was to be co-owner of one of the most important vinyl record shops in Naples “deejaystore” where I built up my large background in the house music. Back in the 90s I was playing all around the city of Naples doing many residencies and sometime outside of my home country also. I decided to build my own studio where day after day I discovered a mania for Audio perfection. After many years of studies I started working as Mastering Engineer for many Labels and top artists. Today I’m mastering whole catalogs for dozens of top labels/artists and this is allowing me to collect thousands hours of music listening of almost all genres. This helped me to have a fairly accurate vision of how the recording market moves and evolves driving me to feel satisfied in the Afro House that’s an evolution of the House sound where I started. This brings me today to stay at the top of all this genres charts after many top 10’s on Beatport, traxsource and Apple Music too, plus millions of streamings, counting today 400K monthly listeners on Spotify more or less.

My twenty-year discography can tell the rest of the story!

About your style/aims when it comes to DJing – are you someone who likes to get people in a trance, or who likes a sense of fun in their sets, or who likes to shock etc etc etc

I have a background that comes from house music plus many years of experience and this allows me today to rapidly read the crowd and choose the mood of the night. Every night, the venue and crowd are different and have their own mood, so I usually test the dance floor with one or two tracks and then I’ll choose the set I’m going to propose. In 90% of my gigs I try to connect with the crowd having fun together, so I can definitely say a sense of fun is my choice.

And where is your best environment? A small dark club or a huge outdoor festival stage? Late at night for the weirdos or early so you can play slow and eclectic etc etc

I started my career in the 90s where the real club culture was born so I obviously prefer dark clubs with a few hundred people around the DJ booth to have fun together like a family. At the same time, thanks to the success I’ve had in the past years, I had the chance to play at festivals and I have to say I love those vibes and crowd too ☺

How did you link with Bass Fly and with Kate Yvorra for the new single?

Bass Fly is a fantastic French producer duo with many years of experience and I discovered them selecting their tracks for Switchlab, label founded by Gianni Romano and co-owned with me. When they proposed to me the idea of joining forces for a House music classic cover I was immediately thrilled, and listening to the first test of Kate’s enchanting voice I had no doubt. In that moment I discovered Kate and I loved her style especially in our track where she maintained the original melodic scale… well what to say, listen to believe!

Who did what? What was your role?

Bass Fly did a first test to allow Kate to record the lyrics, then when all the material arrived in my hands I worked to find the right sounds, harmony, the right structure and layout to bring the track to the next level. Then of course I also took care of the final mixing and mastering.

How important are the words of the vocal, or is it more just about the sound of them?

The lyrics tell about the suffering of a woman, known as lovesickness, but in the case of the musical style of our cover I think the melody of the refrain itself is the most important part.

What drew you to that famous and classic vocal and why not just sample it?

This vocal attracted me because I’ve enjoyed the original version since its release back in 1994 and many experiences and memories of my adolescence are connected to this voice. Obviously it would have been easy to sample the original voice, but it would not allow us to give our personal touch and energy to the vocal using the warm and powerful voice of Kate and the modern instruments we have today.

What gear did you use, are you software or hardware most?

The writing and composing part of this project were made totally with softwares. Today we have digital reissues of classical instruments highly faithful to the original, while mixing and mastering, as I usually do, has been treated with a mixture of analog hardware and DSP software.

What else have you got coming up?

In addition to DJ sets around the world, I’ve many new solo singles and many collaborations and remixes coming out in these months. One of the most important projects that I can define “a dream in the drawer” that I can’t believe will be published very soon.

I had the honour and the opportunity to arrange and produce “Miracle” a song written by the queen of House Music “Ultra Natè” and that will be the single that comes out before the release of his new album on a noteworthy Major Label.

Interview with Emanuele Esposito

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