Italy · house · electronic

DJ Tennis

1 upcoming festival

Italian selector and Life and Death boss whose sets wander from slow-burn house into indie rock without ever breaking stride.

Manfredi Romano, known as DJ Tennis, was born on 27 December 1970 in Italy and originally trained in computer science. Long before performing under his own name he worked around the business, organizing parties and band tours and later moving into band management and music supervision. In 1995 he founded the booking agency Daze in Milan, work that kept him close to the industry for years before he became a club DJ himself.

He founded the Life and Death label in 2010 together with Greg Oreck. The imprint's catalogue, including releases from Tale of Us and Mind Against, helped define a melodic, slightly melancholy strain of European house music that spread well beyond Italy.

DJ Tennis has released his own productions on Life and Death as well as on labels including Kompakt, Running Back, !K7, Cercle and Circoloco, and he has remixed artists such as Diplo, Boys Noize, Loco Dice, WhoMadeWho and Acid Pauli.

His sets run long and take their time, drawing as readily on records with guitars or a bit of gloom in them as on straightforward club tracks, a habit he traces back to the punk and hardcore he grew up on. Romano splits his time between Italy and Berlin.

He talks about cooking and restaurants nearly as often as records. In 2024 he launched a cooking show, Munchietown, with guests from both the food and music worlds, and with Carlita he created Astra Club, a project combining DJ sets with live performances.

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houseelectronic