MDC.288 Daniel Pisano

Chief of the undercover cross over jam, the humble downtempo don and Rhapsodise head honcho @daniel_pisano adds his own slice of paradise to the series, with a dance focussed blend of beachside 90s breezers dusted off and smuggled from their mysterious cyber caves. Cruise control >> on!

Q. Hey Daniel, what inspiration did you draw upon when putting this mix together? Is there a sound, feeling, or time/place in dance music history that connects all the different elements in one way or another?

A. The mix is inspired by my love of 90s dance music. As with most of my mixes, the records used are exclusively from this era, or at least draw inspirations from it. The sounds I like from this era tend to have a similar feel to them - breakbeaty, progressive and always with a touch of balearic energy. I haven’t recorded a dance-floor mix for a couple of years so it was fun putting this together with some of my favourite records and CDs I’ve collected since then.

Q. Are there any records in the mix that are especially close to your heart, or new or old favourites that you’ve been keeping up your sleeve for the right moment?

A. The first track I used in the mix is from a remix CD by Australian electronic music project ‘Kiva’. I went blind on their self-titled album last year and soon realised how good all of their other CDs were. I think I had naturally been drawn to look for music from the UK, Europe and the US and around this time I started researching a lot more into local artists. My appreciation for home grown electronic music definitely started to shift, which you could see in mixes and uploads to my YT channel.

Q. We’re big fans of your Rhapsodise YT channel over here, with some extraordinary finds being uploaded frequently over there by your good self! Tell us a bit more about that project and how you go about curating it, and what characteristics might you be looking for when deciding what tunes to share?

A. Thanks so much for the kind words :) The project was inspired by the other channels in the community that upload amazing finds. Internationally I was always blown away by No Frills, Customs, oddSample, Modern Art and local friends such as Mike Who, Daniel Lupica and Mirren. In terms of curation, I really just upload things that I enjoy that haven’t yet hit YouTube. Most of these uploads form part of mixes that I put together so the uploads I find are generally similar in style to the mix I’m preparing at the time. I’ve recently moved to London, so hopefully there’s some new uploads in the coming months!