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Pascal Moscheni (Auckland, New Zealand, 1985) might not yet be a true Ibizan, but he is certainly in love with the Pitiusa island. He purchased a house on the Island barely a year ago, completing the most extreme circuit of islands that one could make in a single life: he was born in Auckland, the largest -although not the capital–city in New Zealand, and currently resides in Ibiza, the perfect antithesis to his birthplace.
DJ and entrepreneur, son to an Argentinian father and a French mother, Moscheni holds New Zealand and French passports, but spent his adolescence and early youth in Madrid before working as a fashion designer in Milan. Ibiza –where he lives with his partner, the artist Miranda Makaroff– is now his home. He exchanged the exotic vibe of the remote Oceanic North Island for Ibiza’s international flair. “I loved living in New Zealand –the DJ reminisces–, it was ‘the best’. It was a perennial ‘masterclass’ on Nature conservation, prior to all this global environmental movement, responsible consumption and recycling that everyone talks about now. We have always lived with that in New Zealand.
Respect for Nature is part of their culture: the Maori set down the norm for a way of life in which the well-being of the island is more important than that of the individual. It is a real-life utopia”. Moscheni’s life in Ibiza today reads like an instinctive return to his “origins”, to another “almost utopian” island. The difference is that “the complexity of New Zealand resides in the fact that it is very far away, but once you arrive, you can have a life. Ibiza’s hurdles are of a different nature: securing an affordable home or its, to coin a phrase, ‘overdevelopment’”.
He first visited Ibiza a long time ago, invited by a friend, and didn’t return for a few years. “It was when I returned to Ibiza by choice, to spend a vacation that I really understood what I liked about it and why I was so captivated ,” he explains. Firstly, the setting andits location; it’s almost like a micro New York floating in the middle of the Mediterranean. And I like Ibiza’s bipolar nature; October comes and the Island shuts down but, at the beginning of May, everything is open again and the Island is flooded with people, making the Ibiza airport look like a Black Friday sale. I like extremes and Ibiza is extreme and bipolar. On the one hand, I enjoy watching those excessive and ostentatious people who come to Ibiza to be seen. And, on the other, the most absolute contrast: people with RVs or tents who come to hide in the woods. Both inhabiting the same area, floating in the middle of the Mediterranean, polar opposites with the shared goal of enjoyment”.
Although Moscheni’s professional life started as a fashion designer – and he made a good living working in Milan, as part of Neil Barrett’s team – music has always played a crucial role in his life. “I discovered hip hop at the age of 10 or 12, mainstream bands like Cypress Hill or whatever I saw on MTV. I never imagined then that I would devote my life to music, but I started to develop my tastes. The first time music blew my mind was at Coppelia 101, a nightclub in Madrid’s Plaza de los Mostenses. It was very ‘underground’, or so it seemed to me, with my limited experience. I went in and everything was extreme: industrial and electronic music blasting, the way people were dressed or the guys wearing makeup. My brain exploded. From then on, I started consuming music non-stop and decided that I should learn to DJ”.
He bought his first equipment and began to ‘amateur’ DJ while working in Milan as a designer: “A girl who had a hamburger joint asked me if I wanted to DJ on her anniversary or birthday, I don’t remember exactly, and that’s how I started. I deejayed wherever, for fun, just because”. Later, his girlfriend, who came to visit from Spain on weekends, said: “You work for this brand all week just for the money but you can’t wait for the weekend to arrive so you can go deejaying at events.” This marked his launch as a professional DJ, combining his two passions, music and fashion, creating runway music, a field in which he ended up making a name for himself as a DJ.
He eventually created the music production studio PamPam with his partner: Madrid composer, producer and DJ Miguel Barros “Pio- nal”. Here, they work on countless musical projects and background music for brands such as Mercedes Benz, Adidas, Loewe, JW Ander- son, Issey Miyake or Tiffany’s.
“I am a DJ –explains Moscheni–, but at PamPam my partner is the musician. I would not define myself as a music producer or musician, nor am I at the level of the team we have at PamPam. That’s why I leave the music to them and I focus on what I do well, which is working with brands, bringing clients in, talking to them and deejaying at events. A DJ doesn’t necessarily have to be a good producer and a producer doesn’t necessarily have to be a good DJ”. One of his latest projects has allowed Moscheni to do another thing he does well: design. “A year ago I told my manager, Jaime Durán, at Mambo Creatives, that I wanted to design again and a few months later the opportunity arose to do it for Neutrale: I have just created a capsule collection inspired by souvenir shops in Ibiza. I collected a series of typical graphics and fine-tuned them to create a line of t-shirts, pants and hats that will be released at the end of June”.
This being Tapas, we couldn’t end this conversation without some restaurant talk so I tell Moscheni the anecdote about the late Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, who used to eat at a Japanese restaurant in New York regularly where he loved the food. … but he stopped going because the background music horrified him. Sakamoto decided to send an email to the res- taurant owner explaining why he stopped going and offering to create playlists for them…
Moscheni, who had never heard this story, truly believes that background music in restaurants “is super important and I’ve found myself in situations like Sakamoto’s. I haven’t offered to create a playlist, but we have felt uncomfortable, my group of friends and I, because the music did not reach the level of the food served. If you go to a place that has very good food, you expect the music or taste in music to reflect the price level. And oft times it’s terrible. Also, when you’re in a restaurant, music should play a supporting role and not be the star of the show. Music should be something subtle to appreciate while you’re having a nice meal with friends, but it should never be overbearing: the entire experience should be a whole. It’s horrible when you go to a place where they have very bad taste in music or loud music! I hate it and for me, it’s reason enough not to return. We provide this type of service at PamPam: for hotels, for clothing stores. Music is paramount in any commercial establishment”.