Sound Revolt: Yet, the style is not everything. I listened to your compilation put together for Renaissance and I must say I loved it. But you know, sometimes when you listen to compilations you know they are simply a set of tunes, better or worse, but still just a set of tunes. While listening to your mix, I had an impression that there was a sort of a personal message you wanted to convey. Would you say it's just my overinterpretation, am I just being stupid here?
Nic Fanciulli: (laughs) Well you know, you’re totally right. With CD1 I didn’t want to go down the route of having two club CDs. I’ve been DJing for eight or nine years and some people have only known me for the last two and only because of what they write in magazines or because they may have heard my productions. So I wanted to convey there everything that I’d done from the start of Club Class, from opening the room all the way through to the music now. I spent five or six months working on the first CD, trying to get the sounds right, putting in a lot of effort. A lot of people who listened to it said they’d never really heard me play like that and if they’d come to Club Class when I used to open the room, they would have known my style used to be very similar. All the music on CD1 is music I am really in love with and it’s like the deep side of it.
I’ve read an article about new DJs coming through and I went to a DJ competition in my hometown, Maidstone. I was blown away by everything that was going on there, by records that they played and that I’d never heard. I think that, especially with house music, you learn every day and you can discover that some records you missed in 1998 you can probably play right now.

Sound Revolt: So the music you put on CD1 was there sitting in your box for years? Like Basement Jaxx which comes from 1997?
Nic Fanciulli: I’ve also got Sandy Rivera’s “Changes” which is an older record and I’ve got Gavin Frome so nothing is really, really new on that CD, but still a lot of people have missed their records. I’ve got emails about Sandy Rivera’s “Changes” saying that people never heard it and it is such a great record. And I’m really happy with CD1. Actually, I think I prefer CD1 to CD2 because CD2 is a club CD and there’s no lies. It’s just a straight club mix. With CD1 I can sit at home and chill while I listen.

Sound Revolt: What I noticed was that there were two versions of your compilation – the retail one with “Deep inside the Groove” by Cosmos and Basement Jaxx - “Flylife”, and the other one for download with PJ Davy’s “Bollyfella” instead. Why the difference?
Nic Fanciulli: I wasn’t really happy about that. Basically, it’s all about agreement with certain companies. Not that was anybody’s fault, but all big record labels like Universal generally see a mix compilation as a download, so they treat it like it’s going to be one of those “best of dance” things. For such compilations they just put whatever tracks and then they don’t like their music to be downloaded from the Internet. But they’re trying to work out something now, we’ll see. I spent all that time doing that compilation, I wanted it to go the way I mixed it first but it couldn’t, so I had to change it at the last minute

Sound Revolt: About PJ Davy. You’ve got his two tracks on one version of your compilation, Chris Fortier put his excellent “Sella Dor” on “Balance 007” released earlier this year. Do you think PJ is turning hot?
Nic Fanciulli: Totally. “What is” was one of my biggest records in Miami, so I wanted to make sure it was included on the CD. As soon as the likes of James Zabiela started to play his tracks, I knew he was definitely going to be turning hot. He’s also been signed by the Renaissance as well.

Sound Revolt: I’m not sure I liked the idea of putting Basement Jaxx on your mix. “Flylife” does sound a lot like a 1997 track.
Nic Fanciulli: You didn’t like it? (laughs). It was a track that I wanted on my compilation so much, because I had so many fun times with that record. It’s sort of personal, it’s one of my favorite records and it just makes me smile. For me, it was a nice way to send off CD1 and it was a big record at Club Class when it first came out.

Sound Revolt: We waited a while for you to carry out your promise to focus on your own productions. As it turned out the waiting was worthwhile because I find “Squirreled” to be a great tune. Any more your productions that we should be watching for?
Nic Fanciulli: That was a solo project but Andy Chatterley and I continue to work together as the Buick Project. It’s a thing we’ve been working on for about two or three years. We used to be Skylark but we stopped using that name when we moved on to the sound that we’ve finally got and we’re really happy with it. We’ve just finished remixing for Tiefschwarz, also a remix for Soul Mekanik and a remix for Zoo Brazil, which will be on their new single. We are also working on a new Underworld single.

Sound Revolt: Good to know that. What kind of set-up do you use when producing or remixing?
Nic Fanciulli: We’ve got a studio in north London with a lot of hardware and equipment like Korg Micro. Software-wise we’ve just switched from Logic 4 to Logic 7 with enormous number of plug-ins, so we’re still getting used to it.

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