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It took me a moment to come around to Fafi Abdel Nour. It could have been because he suddenly started playing with my work wife (Shanti Celeste) and I got jealous, or because he’s a Capricorn and I’m a Sagittarius sun, but a Capricorn stellium that is often struggles with Capricorn energy. Whether you comprehend what I just said or I understand what took me so long, what I feel confident about now is that Fafi is one of the DJs at this time, stands for so many things which I admire and respect.
As you’ll read in the following interview, his passion for his craft & house music doesn’t go unnoticed for more than a few sentences. He is grateful, and a positive light in dance music which you can hear through his music. Maybe this is from his own journey to be where he is now, but in any case it is one I immensely appreciate in today's climate. He is passionate about the preservation of music from an era which I love so dearly, and has a ripping routine which I respect since I struggle to rip records. We share a love for Octo Octa, house music, and the thought that its roots came from necessity and that’s what makes it so special.
This mix is a testament to his positivity, but also shows a groovy & slinky edge to it. He said he had me in mind while he made it, so maybe you could see this as half of what it would sound like for us to play together. This interview made me feel quite emotional to read so I hope you enjoy this & the mix which Fafi has prepared. As always thank you for supporting & listening <3
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Peach: Hi Fafi :) Thank you for being part of the Sixth Sense mix series. How are you?
Fafi: Thank you for having me, it was a real pleasure to work on this mix. I’m doing alright, I get to spend my time doing what I love, while at the same time navigating depression and everything that is happening in the world right now. It makes me go back and forth between feeling fulfilled and feeling overwhelmed, so I am learning how to hold both at once. Luckily I am not alone in that, I have my lovely feline companion Hans to guide me through it!
P: Where are you living now?
F: I live in Amsterdam and I love it!
P: Have you always lived there?
F: I moved to Amsterdam about four years ago after wrapping up my masters in pharmacy in my hometown. I was born in Aleppo and came to the Netherlands in 1999 as a refugee with my family. We spent about a year in a refugee camp before being placed in Groningen, where I grew up.
P: What does life look like these days? Do you make time to go out?
F: I make a real effort to go out when I have the time. It helps me keep that flame alive and reminds me why I started doing this in the first place. Being on the dance floor is very different from being behind the decks, it allows me to experience clubbing as a form of release and expression rather than responsibility. At the same time, it is also my job, so there is a constant balance to maintain. I try to stay connected to that feeling without letting it turn into something routine or transactional. Keeping that line clear is important to me.
P: How do you find the DJ touring lifestyle?
F: “No sleep, bus, club, another club,” as Lady Gaga once said, and I feel that in many ways. It can be intense, but I really value getting to experience new places, meeting new people, exchanging ideas and finding inspiration through all of it. I honestly have nothing to complain about, it is part of the job and I am here for it, even on no sleep.
P: You have amazing curls and we’ve talked about your curl routine before as I’ve been learning about my own curl routine more. Can you tell us the routine in detail?
F: The job we do, traveling and DJing, honestly isn’t the best match with having curly hair. Constantly rubbing headphones, sweat, smoke, it’s pretty brutal if you want to keep those curls looking fresh. I use a combination of products twice a week, usually after showering when my hair is still slightly wet. I start with a leave-in conditioner or curl cream, then follow up with a curling gel, what some people call “snot.” I make sure everything is evenly distributed, then I use a wide tooth antistatic comb to get the curls into position. After that I just let it air dry. This creates a hard cast, which I scrunch out with a bit of oil once it’s fully set. What you’re left with is frizz free curls that still have volume but stay in place. I really wish someone had taught me all of this when I was younger, it would’ve made me feel a lot more confident in my own body. My sister has the same curls, and when she turned eighteen I gave her a full set of products and walked her through the whole routine so she could feel empowered by it too.
P: What are your early clubbing memories, where do you feel like you cut your teeth? Are there any moments that define this time for you?
F: I can vividly remember going out at sixteen to student bars and clubs around my hometown and feeling mostly disappointed. I kept thinking, is this what everyone was hyping up in high school? It did not connect with me at all. Then I had my first proper rave at Paradigm, where I heard what felt like real club music, and that changed everything. I was completely hooked. I remember feeling seen, loved and accepted for who I was and for what I wanted to become, all through the music as something that brought everyone together.
P: I loved Paradigm when I played. You mean the festival? Or did they do a club night before they were a festival? Do you remember who was playing or what the lineup was like?
F: Back then Paradigm was in a different warehouse and hosted club nights every weekend. I even volunteered there for a while, working behind the balloon bar, which still makes me laugh thinking about it (pun intended). Once a year they would organize the festival, and that combination felt incredibly formative to me. It gave me an early, full-spectrum introduction to both clubbing and festivals, with artists from Moodyman to Speedy J.
P: When did you start djing? Was there a moment or many moments that inspired you to start?
F: After high school I took a gap year before starting my studies. I had just turned eighteen and used that time to really dive into underground club culture and understand it from the inside. That was also when I started collecting records, mainly disco and Italo. Around that time, some friends of mine opened Club OOST in the city centre of my hometown and asked me to play my first gig there. I could not have wished for a better place to grow into being a DJ. It is where I started to feel at home and where I later began my queer night homOOST, which eventually became Butts.
P: homOOST and Butts are both amazing names. Can you tell us about your experience creating a queer club night?
F: As a young gay DJ and raver, I felt disconnected from the queer scene in my hometown, which mostly catered to pop-focused crowds. It felt limiting, so we decided to start our own queer night. In the beginning, we had to win people over, since many were used to bars rather than clubs with proper sound systems. We started with disco as a foundation, something almost everyone could connect to, and used that as a bridge. Over time, we built a real community, and as trust grew, we began experimenting with different sounds and performances. It eventually evolved into something much bigger, with set designs by Tim Simons, who created huge handmade balloon sculptures that transformed the space. The party ran bimonthly from 2017 until the summer of 2025, when Club OOST closed its doors.
Balloon sculptures at Butts
P: I read an interview where you specifically mentioned sounds from “around ’92 to ’98” as years you felt connected to. You said that most of it came from a space of necessity which resonated with me & I wanted to ask you to expand on this. I am also a fan of the sounds from this time and I was wondering if there were any elements which specifically called to you during this?
F: What draws me to that ’90s era is that it came from necessity. House music was not just a sound, it was a space created by black, queer and trans minorities who were not being given space elsewhere, so they built their own. Clubs functioned as places to exist, to connect and to feel safe, even if only for a few hours. The goal was not perfection, but function and expression. People worked with limited tools, without screens or the workflows we have now, but with a clear sense of purpose and you can really hear it in the music. It can be raw, sometimes strange, sometimes playful, goofy bedroom vocals or unfamiliar melodies, but it feels alive because it’s driven by intention rather than polish! There is a lot of strong music being made today, but I feel like the context has shifted. Back then it was less about individual visibility or positioning and more about survival and community. That difference shapes both the sound and the role the music plays. The fact that I sometimes have to repair these tracks says a lot. They were not made to be perfect, they were made to work in a specific moment, to move certain people and hold communities together. And that is exactly what continues to resonate with me!
P: What is your first memory of listening to house music?
F: It was not really a single moment that I can remember, more the overall memory of when I was a baby raver and suddenly felt a sense of purpose and belonging that I had not experienced before. As a young queer, Catholic raised, hairy, chubby, Arab but Dutch youngster living between so many different cultures, I never really felt like I fit anywhere, and then all of a sudden I did. House music was a big part of why that happened, it created the space where I could feel that way, and it felt completely freeing.
P: Where is somewhere you haven’t played yet, but would like to? Is there a specific reason you’d like to play there?
F: I’ve been lucky to play at so many incredible festivals and clubs, and to travel to places I never imagined I would see. But my ultimate dream is to return to where it all started and play in Syria, where I was born. That would feel like closing a circle that has been open for a long time.
P: What was your inspiration behind the mix? Did you think of anyone or anything while recording it? Do you have a favourite part?
F: To be honest, I was thinking of you while making it, which gave the mix a clear sense of direction and intention. My favourite part is the last track, where everything comes together and just feels right.
P: How did you record this mix?
F: I recorded the mix through a set of CDJs and my AlphaTheta Euphonia rotary mixer. It’s a digital mixer with an analog Rupert Neve transformer on the output stage, which adds weight and cohesion to everything passing through it. It keeps the flexibility of digital mixing and using filters, but with a bit more body. It also helps with blending transitions so tracks sit into each other more naturally.
P: Preservation as an important ideal for you with digitization of records. I know you have spoken about this before, but can you tell us about your process in this and what role it plays in your craft?
F: A few years ago I started digitising my records as a way to preserve them. It actually came from a nightmare I had, where I was walking home after a gig and my record bag got stolen. The idea that something you carry with you, and that holds so much personal value, could just disappear really stuck with me. That was the moment I decided I needed a backup of everything. The process itself is quite structured. Cleaning comes first, always. I use a Degritter MKII to get the record in the best possible condition before recording. For ripping, I use a dedicated Audio-Technica VM540ML that I only use for digitising, and I run everything through my AlphaTheta Euphonia into the computer. From there I record in Audacity and do the mastering in Ableton Live. I try to keep the whole workflow as efficient as possible. While one record is being cleaned, another is recording, and a third is being edited, all at the same time. It allows me to keep everything moving and stay focused for long stretches. I can get through around twenty records in a ten-hour session, non-stop! The metadata and artwork are linked through MP3Tag, which saves a lot of time and keeps everything organised. It is a technical process, but it is also part of how I stay connected to the music. It is preservation, but also a way of spending time with each record in a very intentional way.
P: Do you have a preference for vinyl or digital? Did this process make you realize anything regarding the technological advances?
F: After I started digitising my records, I really began to understand what CDJs could offer. Hot cues, looping, changing keys on the fly. For me it became a bridge between the old and the new. I don’t see these tools as shortcuts, but as an extension. They allow for a different kind of control, and I really connected with that. With vinyl, you are always bound to the rotation of the record. You cannot just jump forward or backward without breaking the flow, and sometimes a track builds in a way that leaves very little room to bring in something else. With digital, I can set hot cues so I can move through a track more freely, even in the middle of mixing, or return to an earlier section that opens up space to blend out. Sometimes I trigger hot cues on two CDJs at the same time, which can completely flip the mix in a very immediate way. That level of control opened up a new way of thinking about mixing for me. At the same time, playing records is still something I deeply respect, there is a discipline and a kind of magic in it that cannot be replicated, and some of the most powerful moments I have experienced on a dance floor came from watching artists work within those limits.
P: Tell us a track you’d like to play at sunrise, or have played before and a memory with it.
F: I immediately thought of the third time I got to play the Beach Main at Dekmantel Selectors in Tisno back in 2024, during a sunrise set. I closed with Heaven by Pandora’s Box, and it just hit perfectly. One of those moments where the music aligns with the setting and everything just makes sense.
P: Who is your favourite DJ at the moment?
F: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, my all time favourite DJ is Octo Octa. She is someone I have looked up to for soooo long. I feel like she really understands the underlying urgency and necessity behind what we do, that being yourself and expressing freely in this world is never a given and still has to be claimed and protected. I felt over the moon playing b2b with her a couple of weeks ago at Club Raum, it really felt like everything aligned in that moment.
P: Can you tell us where we can see you DJ over the next while?
F: Dekmantel, Tomorrowland, Circoloco and Bassiani are some of those gigs I’m really looking forward to!
Tracklist
Nick Holder - On A Deeper Level
Weekend World - Session 2
Switch - Big Banana (Banana Rinse)
Tony Thomas - Android (Pete Gawtry Remix)
The Mingers - Fancy A Shag
Urban Company - Blow My Mind Away (Original Vocal Mix)
Attaboy - In Too Deep
Joshua Collins - Gotta Know
Freestyle - Freestyler (Lee & Maze Spiritual Dawn Dub Mix)
Marco Cecere - Sexy Sitar (Tribal Jetlag Instr)
RC Groove - Superfreaque Music (S-Man's Funkygroovalicious Mix)
Untitled - Untitled