INTERVIEW: Mike Opani

With his second album, Mike Opani delves into the cultural heritage of his father and therefore also dedicates himself to the history of his hometown, Naples. The inspiring splendor of this city, founded by the Greeks as Neapolis (New City) and later expanded by the Romans, forms the basis of his new work. "Charon" witnesses the unique influence of these two great civilizations. Mike Opani's fascination with Greek and Roman mythology unfolds in all its glory and results in a passionate engagement with these rich cultural traditions. With "Charon" he has created a remarkable work of art. It is a musical melting pot that impressively displays the diversity and fascination with its historical roots. With two programs you can listen to him on Evosonic Radio for a long time. It's good that he is now also represented on Evosonic Records with his second album.

We have had the pleasure of interviewing the producer and this has been the result.

What was the first thing that attracted you to the world of electronic music? The first electronic music that captivated me were the first Depeche Mode albums followed by Front 242, Nitzer Ebb and Frontline Assembly longplayers. Do you remember any album or concert that has changed everything? I remember a lot of Albums wich changed my view of music. Here are 4: First was: Iron Maiden „Live After Death“, a few years later (1990) Frontline Assembly "Caustic Grip“, Jeff Mills "Waveform Transmission Vol. " and Ed Rush & Nico: „Torque The concert that chanced everything was: MAYDAY 2 at Eisstadion, Cologne 1992 .

Since you got into this professionally, what did you miss the most nationally, internationally and on the contrary, what helped you the most to grow, even to believe in yourself? I was a freelance artist for almost 20 years but after this time I decided to switch back to my old professional field (I work in the health sector and manage a department). This allows me to allow myself to play a lot fewer gigs, I'm not someone who needs 5 gigs on the weekend. I think the energy suffers extremely as a result. And at my age, energy management is extremely important. And funny enough, my output has increased dramatically by my standards. Which is a really great side effect for me. This helped me a lot to grow. How is the music scene living in your city with this murky pandemic situation? Situation is over and the partys are packed

What are your favorite places to hang out in the city? Not much time to hang out in the city and in the meantime i live a little bit outside the city. Have you had time to focus on making music, spending time with your family, or planning future projects? I try to get all those things in line and it works pretty well for my nowadays. Next year there will be the tour and, above all, remixes for the album for which we are currently selecting remix artists. How was your last project born? It was a long lasting idea over a few years since I decided to made the idea a fact. What do you want to convey in this work? What is the concept behind? I wanted to illustrate the magical and sometimes gruesome beauty of Greek and Roman mythology, or rather make it audible and tangible. As for your studio, what is your setup currently made of? I had a Mackie 32-8 Buss mixer and various analog synths, 909, minimoog, etc.Then I switchd to digital production. Nowadays I often produce hybrid but also purely digital and always try to have the analogue sound. Not too clean as it can be heard in many productions today. The new Hart of the Studio is definetly the mac book pro 14 with the apple m1 max and 64 Gb of Ram. It is incredible how many plug ins this monster can process. Love this maschine. What's the one team you'll never get rid of, no matter what SSC Napoli of course. My father is from the city. I had no choice ha, ha. What would you say is the definition of your sound? Hard, dirty, sometimes soft always honest and totally me. What was the last record store you visited and what did you get out there?

The last record store was my own and I took a lot of records with me when I closed it, I can tell you!

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Links

label

www.evosonicrecords.de

artist

Techno:

https://www.facebook.com/MIKEOPANI/

https://www.instagram.com/mikeopani/

https://soundcloud.com/mike-opani

https://www.mixcloud.com/michael-opani/

https://twitter.com/mikeopani

https://www.residentadvisor.net/dj/mikeopani

https://www.beatport.com/artist/mike-opani/561277

https://linktr.ee/mikeopani

http://www.mikeopani.com