DJs of the Year: Tale of Us

Carmine describes his background as modest; the impression is that Matteo's was less so. His father is a business consultant and economist. "He wanted me to take his path – it's a good one, it could have been easy, but it was always going to be something predestined. If I followed his path I was never going to know if I really deserved it, you know?" Matteo's 27 and was born in New York where his father studied, and raised in Italy's Umbrian countryside.

His education came through Aphex Twin, Autechre and the IDM style. "I don't really have a lot of weird musical skills," says Matteo, half-nodding towards Carmine as if 'weird musical skills' are his speciality. "I mean, I've learned a lot about chords and progressions and stuff, but in the beginning it was more just playing with software. Right through school, I was a bit of a nerd. I had Logic, I had Reason, I was on Cubase for five years, then Logic switched to Mac and I had that again."

Matteo also started out in a 'proper' career – he studied economics – but he quit. They both ended up at the SAE Institute in Milan studying music, which is where their paths crossed. "The school was more like a meeting point for us, it wasn't teaching us anything we really wanted to know," says Matteo. "It was more technical stuff. It's a good school, a famous institute, but it's more for engineers. We don't like it."

"Yeah, we don't like it," confirms Carmine with a laugh.

"It's also a problem with Italy, with the way of teaching there," says Matteo, sitting up urgently. "It's why I didn't like university - it's like, 'Learn this by memory and tomorrow tell me what it is'. Not like a group thing, like in other countries, with projects. You don't learn about music by reading a two-hundred page textbook."

"You learn music by doing music," confirms Carmine. "The connection between us is a musical connection, a passion. It's very strong, actually. Really, we come from two different realities otherwise, different crowds."