DJ Edoardo Interview (Neurobiotic Records)

Interview with by Cris Schneider (June 2006)

Edoardo is the main man behind Neurobiotic Records (http://www.neurobiotic.com/) in Rome, Italy. He started his DJ career 12 years ago playing techno and acid house, but then he moved to trance – his big passion. His style is a great mix of psychedelic trance with housey, progressive and electronic elements, and he regularly plays in and all over Europe, Israel, Brazil, Argentina, United States, Canada, Japan and many other countries. He has played gigs at huge festivals like Voov Experience, the Full Moon Festival, Shiva Moon, Solaris, Universo Paralello, Fusion Festival and the Glade, always spreading the Neurobiotic sound. In 2004, he created Indica Music (http://www.indicamusic.com) together with DJ Josko, and he is also one of the organizers of the Sonica Festival, the first trance festival in Italy. In the following interview, Edoardo tell us a little about his career, music, current and future projects and the news for Sonica 2006 (http://www.sonica2006.com).



You are one of the top trance DJs in Europe, but you started your career playing techno and acid house. Could you tell us why did you change to trance, how was that move?

I moved to trance after 2-3 years of playing techno and acid. I fell in love with trance the first time I heard it and didn’t take long for me to decide that this was the music I wanted to play! I think trance is more complete than any other music and open to all styles…. You can find techno, electro, breakbeat and acid elements in many trance tracks. And the atmosphere in a trance party is much better than any techno party!

Which major changes have you seen in trance since you started DJing in the 1990s?

Well, it’s more commercial now and more and more people are able to make music. Before to have a studio meant to invest big money in it, now just a computer is enough to create good music. Parties are bigger and bigger and from one side this is good but from the other is changing the scene. Before it was just a few people traveling the world and gathering in a few places to meet and listen to this music, now there are parties in almost every country.

And how would you define your music now? What can we find inside your case?

Well, I still like to define it psychedelic. That what is all about! In my case you can obviously find Neurobiotic music and an updated collection of the best tunes around.

Regarding psychedelic trance... do you think it is still an ‘isolated’ genre? Which trends would you point out in the current psy trance scene?

I think trance is getting contaminated by other genres. As I wrote before, you can find lot of elements coming from other genres of techno… today mostly electro and what was called before Euro trance.

How do you explain the explosion of psy trance and other hard dance genres in the world? Do you like that?

Of course, being my only job, I enjoy the fact of being able to play every week in different countries and getting paid to do what I like, but this also means a commercialization of something I deeply love. So as someone earning his life out of it I like it, but when I play parties or festival for 10.000 people sometimes I feel like something has been lost.

You are the man behind Neurobiotic Records, which is an excellent electronic music label. How does it work? Tell us a bit about current projects and future releases.

Well my job is to find new music to release on the label and test it at parties, which is quite good fun!
Recent projects have been the Sonica compilation, that promoted the festival we made last summer here in Italy, and the new Tikal album ‘Carnaval’. The next release will be a compilation called ‘neo::caine’ featuring trax from Tristan and Prometheus, Allaby, Zen Mechanics, Jaia, Wrecked Machines and Pixel, Silicon Sound, Orion, Altom, Polaris and Tikal.

You are also one of the organizers of the Sonica Festival in Italy. How was the creation of that great trance festival? And how was the last edition in August?

It was crazy! Italy never experienced a trance festival before and Sonica was for sure a wicked start for the Italian scene! We had 7000 people and the best feedback we could imagine. It was magical!

What have inspired you and the other organizers to create Sonica?

The wish of having a proper festival in Italy. After many years of travelling and attending festivals as a "customer" and as a DJ, I really wanted to create a proper festival in Italy. We think that Italy can be one of the best places in the world for festivals because of its beauties and history, and we are happy to be the first organizing this kind of events in our country.

What can be expected for this year's Sonica second edition?

Last year's edition has been voted as the best festival of the summer, and it was our first experience. After that, we have been talking a lot about the success we had and the few mistakes we made. I'm sure it will be magical once again and we are already here in Capodimonte working on the venue to be sure it will be properly ready when Sonica starts!

And the psy trance scene in Italy, how is it? What Italian artists/DJs would you like to recommend to us?

Psy trance here is slowly growing and Sonica gave a good boost to it. Unfortunately beside Loopus in Fabula and Etnica there are not many trance artists in Italy. We have some good djs such as Josko, Tommy Crystal Vision, Marco Fluoroprankster and a few more.

Could you tell us a bit of your current musical interests, projects?

Beside the Neurobiotic artists, which lately include also Silicon Sound, Panick and Zen Mechanics, I think the best producers right now are Domestic, Allaby, and Wrecked Machines. That’s some of the music I play in my DJ sets.

Where do you see yourself in the future?

Still here in front of a computer managing something related to the music and around the world experiencing new cultures and meeting new people!



Links:

www.neurobiotic.com
www.sonica2006.com
www.indicamusic.com