In a hot wave of artists who stick to one genre, one sound and one mindset - Dario Dea stands aside. For anyone who has listened to the Italian-born and Lisbon-based DJ, producer, event-runner and all-round music lover, it’s easy to see his boundaries between house, melodic and indie-dance are often blurred.
Indeed, Dario’s music world may have started amongst the depths of rock. Blues and playing guitar, but he soon found home within the realms of electronic dance music; playing and making music, whilst on the way creating an abundance of connections who he works with, makes music with and calls friends - think artists like Auggie, Marvio, LICA and Denis Horvat - just to name a few.
His productions are just as mixed and solid as his taste: whether it’s the enthralling and mythical suspense plagued by ‘Evelin’, to harder kicks and snares filling all corners of ‘Make Me’, through to the soulful, carefully pent-up harmony which takes ‘Dance of the Sea’ through from start to finish. Dario Dea is an intelligent, clued-up individual who we wanted to ask from dusk to dawn about him and his musical self. We sat down with him as he revealed some of his secrets…
THURSDAY 19TH JUNE 2025
INTERVIEW START
YOU’RE KNOWN FOR LIKING, CREATING AND PLAYING MANY DIFFERENT GENRES. HOWEVER I WANT TO KNOW WHICH IS YOUR FAVOURITE, AND HOW DID YOU DISCOVER IT?
I don't think I have one, if I'm honest. It really keeps changing a lot. Actually two/three weeks ago I was recording a set here in Portugal, and I was playing only deep house. I’d recently been to a party, and my friends were playing deep house and it really inspired me to play more. Other times it's more indie - sometimes it's more house. It might sound cheesy but as long as it's good, I don't really mind what it is.
More so I have favourite producers, but they tend to make really different sounds too. Take DJ Koze. He makes all sorts of crazy things, but they're all super high quality. And Stereocalypse - he makes indie dance, house, melodic and they're all brilliant.
OKAY THEN, WHO WOULD YOU SAY YOUR TOP THREE PRODUCERS ARE?
That's a hard question, but I would say Mano le Tough, DJ Koze and Stereocalypse.
DO YOU HAVE A FIRST TRACK EXPERIENCE/MUSIC MEMORY THAT GOT YOU INTO ELECTRONIC MUSIC?
Yes - I can literally point to the moment when that happened… I used to hate electronic music and parties with a passion - I've always followed rock and blues and played electric guitar (I’ve been in bands and into metal and all that). And then in a very short period of time, I watched ‘Berlin Calling’ and went to see Deadmau5 at a festival in Milan. Especially after watching Berlin Calling, I discovered dance music was not what I thought. I was intrigued.
Initially I was listening to Claude Von Stroke – a lot of Dirty Bird and similar - after going to my first ADE, I went to a Suara label party and met people into more melodic stuff; soon after I started listening to Solomun and it escalated from there. It's not a huge stretch of the imagination to understand this led to following Diynamic, which around the time of his 2012 Essential Mix.
AS WELL AS A PRODUCER, YOU DJ AND HAVE RUN MANY EVENTS IN THE PAST. WHAT CAME FIRST AND WHAT DO YOU ENJOY THE MOST?
I started DJing about 11/12 years ago. Being a very curious person, I wanted to see if I could make it further. So I took a few classes and began producing around seven years ago. After some time I began asking myself what would help me get more gigs and start moving things a bit? And that’s when I decided to organise parties. I started looking to book artists I liked that weren't that at the time, such as Innellea for my first event (when they were still a two piece), followed by Toto Chiavetta – both had never played London before.
RECENTLY YOU BUILT YOUR OWN RECORDING STUDIO IN LISBON. HAS THIS BROKEN ANY LIMITATIONS YOU HAD MAKING MUSIC BEFORE?
Yes - there's two aspects I've noticed have changed since having the studio. In terms of sound design, I find it more fun and rewarding. And although virtual synths can do a lot, I find the character of the real hardware synths is hard to beat. Even just playing with the knobs on the synths, you come up with things which would be really hard to accidentally stumble on when you're using software.
YOU’VE RELEASED ON MANY RECOGNISABLE LABELS IN OUR UNDERGROUND MUSIC SCENE, INCLUDING SUM OVER HISTORIES, MULTINOTES AND MOBLACK RECORDS. WHEN YOU MAKE TRACKS AND SEND THEM TO LABELS, HOW DO YOU CHOOSE WHICH LABELS TO SEND TO?
Lately I've been trying to be more intentional. Not necessarily the label or the genre per se, but more the vibe, as it helps me focus more. When you're producing, you try many different sounds, samples and things; then you end up with 30 different tracks – it’s quite easy to forget the original plan.
I mean, sometimes you do have happy accidents and something cool can come out. But more often than not, you start losing track, you have a few ideas and it doesn't feel like a track. You just put it on the side and never touch it again - it happens all the time. Focusing on a goal helps lots - saying to myself that “OK, today I want to make a breaks track, or downtempo or something more indie”. Sometimes it does happen that I just jam and then see what happens. Sometimes it’s just about having fun in the studio - but if I'm trying to finish a record then having a vibe goal is key.
“It might sound cheesy but as long as it's good, I don't really mind what it is.”
HAVE YOU THOUGHT A TRACK YOU MADE WAS IDEAL FOR A LABEL, SENT IT OFF, AND THEN GOT A DIFFERENT RESPONSE?
I’ve had something similar before, with an EP I was working on. I had one track I thought was a bomb, and then made another one because the label wanted a breaks track to complete the package - in the end no-one cared about the original track; Mira from Kater Blau started playing the said breaks track. So it’s a perfect example of you not being in control of what's going to work. Advice I got from many artists is to make a lot of music because you never know what's going to resonate and happen.
You just have to keep making music and then hope people will enjoy it, play it and share it.
AND AS WELL AS SINGULARLY-PRODUCED TRACKS, YOU ARE ALSO KNOWN FOR COLLABORATING SUCCESSFULLY WITH OTHER ARTISTS AND PRODUCERS. WHAT ARE THE MAIN FACTORS FOR A SUCCESSFUL COLLABORATION AND WHAT DO YOU LOOK OUT FOR?
A lot of these collaborations have happened in the past because I'm quite technical from the mixing side and people tend to trust my feedback. I can make the example of Auggie or Fec. Very often they send me tracks just for feedback to see if there’s anything I would change. I do the same with them.
I always send them my music before going out to labels. And in many cases what happens is either I or they have an idea, and then we start collaborating. So I have another idea and then we help each other and manage to finish it - this is the ideal scenario for a successful collaboration. In general, newer artists send me music they want help with, or with the potential to collaborate - I'm always happy to help. I have the freedom of releasing music with people that aren't known, and it's not going to impact my career negatively; I can work on it with absolute freedom.
For example, I made a track with Bosnian artist Machado, which also was his first track. I felt like some ideas were powerful, but he had no idea how to mix the track. I helped him put it together as a track, mixed it and then we released it. So as long as there's something I think is interesting, then I'm happy to collaborate with - it doesn't matter if they're friends or small/big artists.
HOW DOES YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS DIFFER, WHEN MAKING MUSIC INDEPENDENTLY AND COLLABORATING WITH OTHER ARTISTS?
When working together, you need less ideas in a way, as you’ll be bouncing off each other. I usually work with people who rarely make something that I don't like - so I never have to say certain elements don’t work for the track. For example, with Auggie - if I make a bassline and he makes a lead line, I know it's going to sound amazing. We keep adding to each other’s work and it's really easy.
When I work by myself, it takes more hours and more sessions, and you kind of lose the original inspiration. On the other hand, when I work with other people, and are losing inspiration, the other person can be inspired and add to it. There's less pressure on you. And I do put a lot of pressure on myself when I make music.
However it’s not healthy to only do collaborations, so I try to keep balance. In a way, collaborating is a bit like making remixes to me: like the remix already gives you a lot of ideas that you can work with. Then you just need to find a new shape for them. And in the same way, collaborating with people takes away a lot of the making something out of nothing because you're sharing that with someone else.
DO YOU HAVE A PARTICULAR TIME WHERE YOU HAVE COLLABORATED WITH SOMEONE, AND IT'S CHANGED YOUR VIEW OF PRODUCTION - OR YOU'VE LEARNT SOMETHING YOU STILL CARRY THROUGH TO THIS DAY?
All the time. It’s another reason why I like to collaborate with other people. Yes I think I do a decent job as a producer, but you know, I'm not an international producer. When working with others, I find it an easy way to learn things and steal a few tips and tricks. Sometimes it will be a mixing tip, or sometimes it’s equipment.
YOU JUST MENTIONED ABOUT REMIXES, SO HERE’S ONE FOR YOU: WHEN YOU ARE THINKING TO POTENTIALLY REMIX A TRACK (NOT ONE YOU'VE BEEN APPROACHED ABOUT), HOW DO YOU ESTABLISH THIS IS A TRACK TO REMIX? DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING THAT YOU SPECIFICALLY HEAR OUT FOR?
It's funny, I've never done remixes this way. I won’t take a club track and make my own remix of it just because I like it. I usually take completely different types of tracks and then do more edits, like if I’m watching a movie and I hear the soundtrack and it inspires me. Such as ‘John Wick 4’: there’s scene where they’re in a Berlin club – and ‘Fantastic Piano’ by Axel Boman playing. I decided to make an edit.
Originally it had a tiny bit of drums at the back, but it wasn't something you could really play in a club. So I put a big-ish kick and then more drums. I wanted to have my own version I could play in the middle of a set - so I made one. My wife hates me because every time we go somewhere or listen to something like, oh, that could work in a club, that place could be a club - it's becoming a joke at this point!
ON THE TOPIC OF MAKING YOUR OWN MUSIC, I KNOW THAT YOU HAVE TRACKS WHICH ARE NEARLY DONE COMING UP FOR RELEASE THIS YEAR. WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THEM?
There are different things I've been working on in the last few months. One of them is a collaboration with an artist from Lisbon called Khalil Suleman - he's an amazing DJ and runs his own party, Electronic Shapes. We've been making this track over a few sessions together and it just needs to be finished now. Kahil has already played it in a few sets and it's huge. So that's nice.
As I've been quite busy and traveling a lot, I've started noting ideas on airplanes a lot. Then when I reach the studio I’ve been working on them with Marvio who has been helping a lot and trying to clarify and remove what is not essential. He's been motivating me a lot to finish them. Now I have three/four really solid ideas that are definitely going to be good tracks. I just need to wrap them up a bit - it's just time and energy consuming!
AS WE KNOW, YOU'RE ITALIAN AND EVEN MORE SPECIFICALLY I KNOW THAT YOU LOVE TO MAKE LASAGNA! IN TERMS OF LASAGNA, IT HAS SOME VERY ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS – THE PASTA, THE CHEESE AND THE MEAT SAUCE. NOW IN TERMS OF MAKING A TRACK – WHAT ARE THE KEY COMPONENTS OF A SONG TO YOU?
The first is the bass – it’s what moves the lower parts of your body. If the bass is poor, people won’t move. Also it’s dependent on the goal, but if you’re making good club music that you want people to dance to, you need good bass. Like there's no escaping it. And then personally, I like to have big moments such as a lot of crescendo. Having one key moment in the break or the hook sounds obvious, but really important. Finally the mixing. You can have the best track in the world, but if it's mixed poorly, it doesn't translate in the club.
The last 5-10% are the things which improve the track - good arrangement, good effects, a good kick and good samples.
GIVE ME ONE TRACK WHICH SUMS YOU UP AS AN ARTIST.
Lehar & Olderic - ‘Il Sole’. It’s such a beautiful club track. Elegant; has great leads and great bass. The arrangement is beautiful. I keep playing it, you know, 10 years after it was made. I’ve played it during some of the best party memories. Hopefully Enrico and Lorenzo are happy with that!
FOLLOW DARIO ON HIS INSTAGRAM, FACEBOOK AND SOUNDCLOUD
DOWNLOAD DARIO’S ‘EVER NOW’ EDIT HERE