Since he began spinning minimal techno records at friends’ parties in 2014, Italian producer D:fferent Place has never looked back. Shirking away from the limelight, he’s instead released a stream of quality EPs on the label of the same name. Last year, he released “Shades of Time,” five-and-a-half minutes of feel-good melodies and chunky low-slung grooves, on XLR8R+, as well as D:fferent Place 005, his latest EP. (Next month he’ll put out D:fferent Place 006, a new EP under the alias.)

Little is known about D:ifferent Place’s origins as a producer but what we do know is that he began with three slick micro-house tracks as Pressure Point, his other alias, on Italian label Castanea Records, and his music instantly gained traction. From there, he signed to Sol Asylum and launched Telharmonic Texture, a little-known label with a big roster: Akufen, Paradroid, and Jeff Samuel, to name a few.

D:fferent Place, born In 2017, was conceived “with a lot of lightness,” the Italian artist says. Whereas Pressure Point is a DJ act, D:fferent Place only plays out live, and what we’re presenting this week is his first published live set. (D:fferent Place has put out a podcast as Pressure Point—featuring 80 minutes of deep, flowing grove from Edward, Youandewan, and Thomas Melchior). In this mix, you can expect one hour of precise, swinging deep house numbers, all made by the man mixing them.

01. What have you been up to recently?
Fortunately, in the last few months I’ve been living a great moment, living the music serenely, without stress, and trying to reach all my goals step by step.

02. What have you been listening to?
Well, I could stay here for a long time explaining but I will try to do a summary. I’ve been deep diving into ’80s and ’90s Italian music which gives me peace of mind. I’ve also been focused on house music from Detroit to Chicago, disco, and Italian house.

03. Where and when did you record this mix?
I recorded it a few days ago in my studio. It’s the environment where I feel more comfortable with my studio headphones, where I can be focused about the live output quality.

04. What setup did you use?
I’m still learning a lot! The live set is endless experimentation. At the moment I work with laptop tools and some analog machines including two Novation MIDI controllers, a small SSL audio interface Korg EMX1SD, Korg ElecTribe SX, and a microKORG.

05. How did you go about choosing the tracks you’ve included?
It was very easy. When the music is your own you can be spontaneous in mixing it and finding the right workflow.

06. What’s next on your horizon?
First of all I would like to bring my live set everywhere and make it known. I hope to debut in some clubs shortly and I hope it will give something more to the music scene. I have a lot of work ahead of me also with my new distributor. I’m waiting for the next EP, D:fferent Place 006, which should be released in the fall. Maybe it’s also time to make some releases outside my label. So, let’s look around!

XLR8R Subscribers can download the podcast below. If you’re not an XLR8R subscriber, you can read more about it and subscribe here.

Tracklisting

01. D:fferent Place “Funkedelic” (Unreleased)
02. D:fferent Place “Keep On” (Unreleased)
03., D:fferent Place “U Got Me Up” (Unreleased)
04. D:fferent Place “Autumn Light” (Unreleased)
05. D:fferent Place “Analog Tales” (Unreleased)
06. D:fferent Place “That Place” (D:fferent Place)
07. D:fferent Place “Running Back” (Unreleased)
08. D:fferent Place “New York Groove” (Unreleased)
09. D:fferent Place “Mr Science” (Unreleased)
10. D:fferent Place “Talk About Time” (Unreleased)
11. D:fferent Place “Vibedive” (Unreleased)
12. D:fferent Place “Edit Loop” (Unreleased)
13. D:fferent Place “Collective Struggle” (Unreleased)
14. D:fferent Place “Moonchild” (Unreleased)
15. D:fferent Place “C’mon C’mon” (Unreleased)