My biggest passion is italo disco.

I prefer the less-known, even obscure and bizarre tracks but of course there are many commercial sounding releases that I also enjoy a lot. The genre is so diverse that it’s impossible to say that you like everything. I actually have a love/hate relationship with many of vinyls I have in my collection. I can remember many songs that I nearly hated on the first listen but fell in love with the second time. The most important aspect for me in italo is that it gives you a wide range of emotions – it never leaves you cold.

I used to go to raves as a teenager and watch the deejays work their SL-1200’s and mixer – it was fascinating to see how they could manipulate the crowd with just a move of their finger. There’s quite a difference how to mix techno and italo disco. I used to make long transitions making the tracks play over each other for a minute or two – sometimes I even had a third deck to make it more exciting. I guess you can hear my past in how I mix italo too.

About 5 years ago I began listening to italo after a friend recommended the genre to me. Since then I’ve spent many many hours browsing Discogs and making many many new discoveries while listening to Intergalactic FM and enjoying mixes by maestros such as Flemming Dalum, Intergalactic Gary and David Vunk. I even sold my techno collection to afford some italo records. Techno was my first crush and italo is my true love. It’s just a perfect blend of what I like most in electro, techno and pop music.

I’ve been very happy to meet passionate italo friends from Finland and around the world. It’s exciting how fanatic people are for a music style that had it’s peak 30 years ago! Surprisingly, the italo world is quite busy at the moment when new labels are repressing out-of-print rarities and artists are producing outstanding new italo.

I also give my contribution to the italo world by designing sleeves for Finnish italo label Flashback Records and also organizing my own club The Saturnday Disco here in Tampere. I spin not only italo but also synthpop, minimal wave and such genres to keep it interesting. It’s not an easy task in this size of a city with a relatively unknown genre to most youngsters. There have been some successful parties and not so good ones – for example the one which was located in the middle of the forest and I was just waiting to see if anyone would come. Oh well, it was still fun to have a beer or two with the artists while enjoying the sauna and listening to fantastic italo disco!

Mixtapes: https://soundcloud.com/juancalia