When, ten years ago, a student named Isabella was asked to store a couple of boxes in her flat by a friend on her university futsal team, she didn’t think anything of it; she never thought the contents of those containers might come to alter the trajectory of her life. Perched on the sofa in her current apartment in Milan, Isabella – who is better known under the DJ and production moniker, Matisa – is reflecting on that symbolic exchange. “Curiosity got the better of me eventually and I just had to know what was inside them,” she tells DJ Mag, dark eyes glinting. “It ended up being turntables, monitors, and a mixer... I didn’t even know what they were at that time.”
Fast-forward a decade and Matisa is one of the most in-demand names on the international house circuit, booking DJ slots alongside Peggy Gou and Kim Ann Foxman, whilst putting the finishing touches on her debut mini-album following releases for Steel City Dance Discs, Permanent Vacation and Optimo. But Matisa never set out to be a DJ, as her discipline-spanning credentials will attest. It was an occupation that sought her out in the most unusual of ways.
On inheriting the Pandora’s Box of DJing from her teammate, Matisa was part way through a Political Science degree at the historic University of Perugia. “I studied that just so I didn’t cause a problem honestly,” she admits, reflecting on the first of many diversions taken in her life. “In Italy, there are three major careers – doctor, lawyer and engineer – and I just wanted to make my parents happy... I didn’t really mind because I love to study, but deep down I knew that I was an artist since I was born.”
With this in mind, Matisa couldn’t resist taking her newly acquired DJ set-up for a spin. “My parents are not into music, they don’t even have one vinyl in their house, just books,” she explains, “so I went straight to the record store near where I was living to buy some.” The rest of that summer was spent “practising and practising” until the fateful day she was asked to hand them back, and eventually began to piece together her own modest set-up, funded by hosting weekly listening parties.
“I wasn’t able to properly mix yet because I hadn’t been learning for long, so I knew I needed to find another way to make people dance,” she explains, a flash of giddiness crossing her otherwise reserved demeanour. Enlisting the help of a friend who was working at Perugia’s Red Zone club, the duo set about curating a “special listening environment” in Matisa’s very own front room. “We bought five or six old bird cages of different sizes and used them as lamps,” she explains. “The lights all changed colour so it was quite magic. People just came and listened to some of my music, maybe smoked a bit, drank, and chilled. It was on a Thursday night I think, but it was always full of people.”
Armed with her new 3-channel Vestax mixer, two turntables and a pair of 8" M-Audio monitors, Matisa upped sticks to Brussels later that year after finishing her degree. It’s a decision she credits with cementing her love for DJing, as well as a perceptible widening of her palette. “For me, [Brussels] was like one big dream. You’d walk down the street and you’d find a party... from that moment I think I found myself for the first time. I discovered disco music, and started buying a lot of house and disco vinyl,” she offers, shouting out second-hand spot Crevette Records. “Before, I was playing a lot of techno... not the mental kind, like Donato Dozzy and Abdulla Rashim, that kind of more experimental vibe.”