Dan Ghenacia

Kwality at Batofar, the school of the early hours

In late nineties Paris, the Kwality afterhours at Batofar turned a boat on the Seine into a house laboratory. Dan Ghenacia arrived there after a year in San Diego, soaked in West Coast house and psychedelia alongside Mark E Quark, and after opening Traffic Records with Didier Allyne to import that Californian vinyl. Saturday started at four in the morning: the first party gathered about thirty people; within a year there was a queue in the street and seven hundred tickets sold on a Sunday morning. In that intimate booth, with a JBL system and a mixed crowd, he refined the crossover of deep house and techno that continues to define his sets, and shared the decks with those who would later become lifelong accomplices: Dyed Soundorom and Shonky.

Circoloco Resident: from raver to home at DC-10

He traveled to Ibiza in 2000 as a clubber. Between 2001 and 2003 he closed Circoloco at DC-10; in 2004 he stayed on as a resident, when the island barely left room for the underground. In 2012 he regularly occupied the Terrace and, later on, formed a regular duo with Dyed Soundorom. He likes marathons: at Panorama Bar, Berlin, he once played a twelve-hour back to back set with Shonky. In 2013 he recorded a set for Boiler Room in New York. Compilations such as Sun Frenchie's Co. (1999), Kwality (2002) and Sound of the City: Paris (2011) map out those stages, from San Francisco vinyl to Parisian afterhours and life on tour.

Freak n' Chic, Apollonia and the hypnotic dancefloor

In 2004 he founded Freak n' Chic, initially as a sub-label of Brique Rouge. There he promoted Shonky, Dyed Soundorom and Djebali, and released the first EP by Jamie Jones. A disagreement between partners closed the label in 2009. In 2012, with Dyed and Shonky, Apollonia was born: label, world tour and b2b2b concept, with the album Tour À Tour (2014) and the Fabric 70 mix. Tracks like Da Doo Da, Manhattan 85 and Close to the Edge became benchmarks of his hypnotic house. With Chris Carrier he has released on Adult Only and Music For Freaks. In 2024 came Rouge ou Noir; in 2022 he had opened the label AWEED with the D EP. His current booking and management are at Pieces. In 2025 he signed the fabric Podcast 061 and the XLR8R Podcast 867.

Lisbon, the Dreamachine and the current pulse

Since 2018 he has been working in Lisbon, with a studio at Boa Lab Gallery. With Tolga Fidan he develops Art Of Wave —ambient and sound design for exhibitions— and AOW, in addition to the dub project Dig Da Dub. The Alpha Wave Experience collective reinterprets the Dreamachine by Brion Gysin: The Clock was presented at Colnaghi (London) and The Oracle toured Lille3000, the CENTQUATRE-PARIS and El Silencio in Ibiza. Between the booth and the gallery he pursues the same thing: extended sets of house, deep house and tech house, and a listening experience that asks you to close your eyes as much as it asks you to raise your arms.