How do you navigate between melancholy and emotions next to dance floor vibes and euphoria in your compositions?
In most dance music, what people immediately connect with – and what producers tend to emphasize – is the beat. By stripping that away and, so to speak, placing a magnifying glass over the elements that usually remain in the background, I can highlight the parts of the music that actually carry the emotional weight. In doing so, I’m essentially robbing dance music of its primary function, its groove, its energy, its ability to make people move, and instead focusing on what remains once that purpose is removed. That residue is often where the melancholy, fragility, and euphoria reside.
What does “Trance” represent for you?
My pretentious answer to this is: transcending your rational self by letting yourself get dragged into a momentary state of wholeness.
What I mean by that is being able to connect with music in a way that provides your existence with meaning. Looks like I can’t give you a non-pretentious answer to that question, I’m afraid. I generally tend to get way too esoteric when answering questions like this, and I don’t even know where this is coming from, but I hope this somehow makes sense for the people reading this.
Given the shifting electronic underground in Vienna—venue closures, new promoters, etc. How do you perceive the current scene, and how do you see your role within it?
My most active clubbing days are behind me, and many of the promoters I knew from when I was more deeply involved in the scene have since moved on. Compared to 10, 15, or even 20 years ago, the number of venues has shrunk considerably, and it seems that people aren’t going out in the same way they used to. As a result, the idea of running clubs or organizing shows appears to have lost much of its former allure, which makes it harder for new scenes to form organically. Younger folks are used to finding each other online, and that often creates networks that are more global than local, a shift that comes with new challenges and opportunities, but ultimately is also detrimental to the organic evolution of a scene, or scenes in Vienna.
Because of the reasons mentioned above, I no longer really see myself as part of a specific local scene. These days, if I go out as a listener, it’s usually to a hardcore or punk show. My main involvement with local music now is less about participating in a scene and more about working as a mixing and mastering engineer, regardless of genre.
How important are the sound and the occasion/place you play for your work?
For me, the most decisive factors are usually the monitoring and the lighting. Ideally, I want to be able to lose myself fully in the moment while performing. When the listening conditions are right, and I’m not distracted by the audience in front of me, I can slip into a kind of meditative focus, almost forgetting where I am and merging completely with the music. The worst case is when I can hear the audience talking. This takes me out of the moment like nothing else. All in all, the occasion and place are secondary I guess, as long as I can create my little safe bubble on stage that keeps out any distractions.
Do you adapt your set depending on the venue and context, or do you prefer to keep it consistent?
I’ve developed the bad habit of always wanting to play a different set at every show, even if I have multiple gigs in a row with only a few days in between. I think I’m just worried about being bored on stage, and not being able to “feel” the music as much as I’d like. But generally, this is independent of external factors like venue or context, unless it’s a special occasion like my performance at the Sonic Territories festival. For this show I’m preparing a special audio-visual experience, which ís something I’ve never done before, and I can only hope it’s going to work well.
Have you already been to Sonic Territories as a guest? How was that for you? It’s your debut there, the first time having a set part of the program, right? What are the expectations you might have?
I’ve only attended Sonic Territories once – last year – but I’ve always admired the festival’s curation and concepts from afar, so to speak. This will indeed be my first time performing there, and while I’m still in the early stages of preparing the project – most of it still just taking shape in my head – I do have quite high expectations for my performance. I tend to be ambitious with my own work, and I want to present the best work I’m able to deliver at that moment. But I’m very happy about the selected venue, which feels like a strong fit both technically and aesthetically. That gives me a lot of confidence and lets me approach the performance with a sense of openness rather than worry.
Are there particular elements in your set that you hope will resonate strongly with the Sonic Territories community?
I hope the set can create moments of trance or magic for the audience. In the past, I always tried to perform in near-darkness to remove visual distractions, but this time I’ll do the opposite by projecting video alongside the music. If it works as I intend, the visuals won’t compete with the sound but will amplify it, making the performance and experience more powerful than ever.
What are you listening to these days?
I’m currently kind of obsessed with Ethel Cain, whom I unfortunately only just discovered this year. Other than that, I’ve been listening to a lot of guitar music recently, mostly the new Turnstile and Deftones albums. In terms of purely electronic music, my current go-tos are Barker, Nazar, Malibu, and a lot of old school jungle/hardcore tunes. Generally, I don’t often listen to a track or album more than once or twice before I move on to discover more music, because a decade of being able to stream every music that exists has broken my brain, I guess.
Dino Spiluttini – www.dinospiluttini.com, www.instagram.com/dinospiluttini/
