You don’t have to use any special clichéd vocabulary à la »808 foundation« to have a good conversation with Nadia D’Alò. This is probably due to the fact that she came to the club context rather indirectly and comparatively late. As a teenager she listened to Eric Satie and Dave Pike, became a singer in a bossa nova band, and later became a fan of Radiohead, Bauhaus and Portishead. When she got her first synthesizer in her early 20s, it was initially to »play around« in a new wave band. But then, in 2012, during her studies, D’Alò met her now-husband Benedikt Frey, who was already an established house and techno DJ. A musical counterpoint, she says. D’Alò changed her previously negative opinion of DJing, the two formed the duo INIT—and were immediately invited to the Boiler Room session at Offenbach’s Robert Johnson for their very first performance in 2015. »I wouldn’t recommend that to anyone,« D’Alò sighs in the interview about her unusual baptism of fire.
Rocket R.i.O.
From the moment she ignited her rocket ship, D’Alò’s journey took off. Bookings at Berghain, Golden Pudel and Rex Club in Paris followed, cementing her status as a rising star in the electronic music scene. In 2019, D’Alò, Frey and Markus Woernle founded the label R.i.O., a platform that perfectly reflects their shared ethos of defying expectations. Her solo project, DALO, also gained recognition for its dark techno tracks infused with acid, industrial grit and ethereal vocals. She continued to work on her singing voice—which mostly lies somewhere between Nico and Tess Parks, but sometimes lets her sympathies for Beth Gibbons shine through—and received requests for collaborations from the likes of Massimiliano Pagliara and Jennifer Cardini. Her latest album, »Duster«, is an intensely personal work, a »record without rules« as she describes it. The title track delves into her battle with a illness she suffers from. The musician and DJ has created an exclusive mix for us, which offers a rare insight into her creative process, showcasing her evolving sound and the raw emotions that fuel her music.
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