IN CONVERSATION WITH DAVID CASTELLANI

Interview by Samo Šajn

Producer, live performer and Noetic founder David Castellani approaches techno through a mix of music, technology and experimentation. Following a run of live shows across North America, he now joins forces with Japanese techno pioneer Ken Ishii for ‘Obia’, a three-track collaboration released on Noetic. We caught up with David to discuss the project, live performance and his approach to technology.

Your new collaboration with Ken Ishii, ‘Obia’, was created over a year of work. How did this project come together, and what was the creative process like between you two?

It came together really organically. Ken visited my studio in LA, and we basically just started exploring with no real agenda. We both come from slightly different approaches. Ken has this incredible sense of structure and clarity, while I tend to work in a more improvisational, modular way, so there was an interesting tension between those two things.

The first ideas came out of those sessions, and then over the following year we kept developing them remotely as our lives moved between LA, Tokyo and eventually Lisbon. It became this ongoing conversation rather than a traditional studio collaboration. We’d send things back and forth, react to each other’s ideas, strip things away and rebuild them. The important thing was keeping the energy of those first sessions intact while gradually giving the tracks a stronger identity.

You first started working on the tracks when Ken visited your former LA studio. What was that studio session like, and how did the music develop after that?

That first session was very raw and playful. We weren’t sitting down saying, “Okay, we need to make a record.” We were patching things, improvising, recording long takes and reacting to whatever was happening in the room.

A lot of the material had that immediate quality because neither of us was overthinking it. Afterward, we took those recordings and started sculpting them into something more focused. We kept exchanging ideas remotely and refining the arrangements, but we were always careful not to polish away the spontaneity that made those original jams exciting.

You created your own Eurorack module, ‘The Precision Disrupter’, which is used by artists like Richie Hawtin. What inspired you to create your own piece of hardware?

It really came from wanting a tool that didn’t exist in exactly the way I wanted it to. A lot of my creative process is about finding ways to interrupt habits. Once you work with the same setup for a long time, you naturally start making certain decisions automatically.

The Precision Disrupter was about introducing controlled unpredictability into that process, being able to shift timing and patterns in ways that create surprise without completely losing control. I like instruments that behave almost like collaborators. They give you something you didn’t necessarily ask for, and then you have to respond to it. That interaction can take you somewhere you wouldn’t have gone on your own.

You have a strong passion for teaching and have hosted workshops at ADE. Why is education such an important part of your work as an artist?

I’ve always thought of music as something that gets passed between people. Almost everything I know came from somebody sharing an idea, showing me a technique or simply letting me observe how they approached something.

Teaching also forces you to understand your own process differently. When you have to explain why you make a certain decision, you start questioning things you might normally do instinctively. So workshops never really feel like a one-way exchange to me. I’m sharing what I know, but I’m also constantly learning through the questions people ask.

And especially with electronic music, where technology can sometimes feel intimidating or overly technical, I like showing people that the goal isn’t mastering every machine. It’s finding a way to make the machine speak in your own language.

You were taught drums by Juma Santos, who worked with Miles Davis. How did those early lessons influence the way you approach music today?

One of the biggest things I learned was to listen first. Rhythm wasn’t treated as something purely technical. It was a conversation.

That stayed with me. Even now, working with synthesizers, sequencers or modular systems, I’m thinking about rhythm in terms of feel, tension, space and response. You don’t always need to add something. Sometimes the most important decision is leaving space for something else to happen.

There was also this idea of feel over flash. Technique is obviously important, but technique should disappear into the music. What matters is whether something actually communicates.

You recently toured North America with Sterac and Lady Starlight for your Noetic label shows focused on modular and live performance. What do you enjoy most about this format?

The unpredictability. With a live or modular performance, there’s always some level of risk. Even if you understand the system completely, the exact relationship between everything changes from night to night.

I love that because it forces you to be present. You’re not simply reproducing something you already made in the studio. You’re listening to the room, listening to the machines and reacting in real time.

There’s almost this triangle between the performer, the system and the audience. When it works, all three are influencing each other. That’s when a performance starts feeling genuinely alive.

Your work often combines music, movement and visuals, such as your project with contemporary dancer AnnMarie Arcuri. What attracts you to working with artists from different disciplines?

I’ve never really thought creativity needed to stay locked inside one format. Music is obviously at the center of what I do, but movement, design, film, fashion and visual systems can all reveal different sides of the same idea.

Sound is also incredibly physical. You feel rhythm in your body before you necessarily intellectualize it. Working with a dancer makes that relationship visible. Visual artists can do something similar by creating another layer of perception around the sound.

I’m interested in what happens when those disciplines actually influence each other rather than one simply decorating the other. That exchange can completely change how I hear the music.

Through Noetic, you have created a platform for experimental and forward-thinking techno. What was your vision when you started the label?

I wanted Noetic to be a home for music with a clear point of view. Something exploratory and forward-thinking, but still emotionally direct.

I’m drawn to artists who genuinely sound like themselves. I’d rather hear somebody developing their own language than somebody perfectly reproducing whatever is happening at that moment.

There’s also an element of patience to the label. I don’t think every month needs another release just to maintain momentum. I want the catalogue to feel coherent over time, almost like an evolving body of work, something that rewards attention and hopefully still feels meaningful years later.

The next step in that evolution is opening Noetic up further to other artists. I’m excited to welcome LA-based producer John Rojas to the label shortly with his new EP, ‘Skin’. He’ll be the first artist besides myself to release an original solo project on Noetic, so it feels like an important moment for the label and where it goes next.

Technology plays a big role in your music, but so does human creativity. How do you find the balance between machines and emotion in your work?

For me, technology is most interesting when it creates possibilities rather than answers.

I’ll build systems that can surprise me, sequencers, modular patches, generative processes, but then the human part is deciding what actually matters. The machine might create a hundred possibilities, but instinct tells you which one has emotion.

So I’m constantly moving between control and chance. I let the machines suggest things, but ultimately I follow the vibe. If something is technically interesting but it doesn’t make me feel anything, it usually doesn’t stay.

The goal isn’t perfection. It’s creating a conversation between the system and the person using it.

After the release of ‘Obia’, what else are you looking forward to exploring creatively in the future?

I’m becoming increasingly interested in building more fluid performance systems, things that can change direction in real time rather than being locked into fixed arrangements.

I want performances to feel like living structures. Small decisions can completely change where the music goes, and the energy of the room can influence those decisions as well. In that sense, the environment and the audience almost become part of the instrument.

Beyond music itself, I’m also interested in deeper collaborations across different creative disciplines and in building larger environments around those ideas. I think I’m becoming less interested in separating music, instruments, visuals, education or design into completely different categories.

They’re all different ways of exploring the same thing: creating systems that encourage curiosity, risk and discovery.