A DJ can be anything! A DJ can be a marshmallow, a French robot, or simply a guy named David. But whether today’s DJs present as unremarkably human or cartoonishly non-human, they tend to exist in a state of wordlessness—more like messianic, pupil-dilating projections than flushed-out artistic personae. But not Wolfram.

Defying this image of the personality-less mega-DJ, Wolfram fashions himself as the musical underground’s court jester, lacing his euro-dance beats with a self-aware, sometimes self-deprecating lightness. The eponymous 2018 single “Wolfram,” for example, samples the catchy, chaotic baseline from Instagram’s Superzoom “Beats”—a comment on the commodification of club culture, perhaps? His history as a musical troll would suggest so.

An Austria-born model-turned-musician, Wolfram began releasing music under the alias Sally Shapiro. While Pitchfork praised the enigmatic Shapiro’s debut for auguring an Italo disco revival, Wolfram, who’s gone by multiple aliases over the years, didn’t much care for the genre. “[Italo disco] was cheesy, emotional, and over-the-top. Basically, it’s bad. Vocals are sung in … Italian-English, and always about hanging out in Beverly Hills, though of course they’ve never been there,” Wolfram told us back in VMAN13, after he’d dropped the Shapiro charade, going by the name Diskokaine instead.  

As Diskokaine, he rounded the Paris-New York party circuit, before releasing his first album as Wolfram—his given name and current DJ mononym—in 2011. But his now-lengthy list of collaborators, ranging from Pamela Anderson to Princess Superstar, reflects his years as a fashion-party fixture. In fact, it was a 2009 gig co-hosted by V Magazine and Marc Jacobs that led to one of the more eclectic collaborations on Wolfram’s long-awaited sophomore LP, Amadeus, out now on DFA.  

Here, we catch up with Wolfram, and take a star-studded trip down memory lane.

VMAN We hear you’re in Ibiza. What are you up to there?

Wolfram I’m in Ibiza to DJ the second floor of Dixon’s Friday night at Pacha, “Transmoderna.” 

VMAN There was a pretty big gap between Amadeus and your previous LP. How do account for that time?

W I could try to think of a clever excuse, to make it sound like I was busy… But I have to admit that I [don’t have an excuse]. I just like to take it slow.

VMAN How long did the actual making of Amadeus take?

W Eight-and-a-half years passed between my first album and my current album. That is longer than the Eight years that the Beatles existed. According to Google, they wrote 229 songs in that period, so [by that logic] the Beatles could probably have written a chorus or verse song in the time it takes me to answer these questions… [Also,] “Amadeus” was the middle name of certain other Austrian musician… 

VMAN The guest appearances on the album are wide-ranging and notable! Specifically, how did you connect with Pamela Anderson?

W I was DJing the Vivienne Westwood party in Paris and Pamela was dancing in front of me. After I finished playing, her assistant came up and said that Pamela wants to meet you so we got introduced and became friends.

We first talked about making a tune [together] when we went to Venice for the opening of David LaChapelle’s exhibition [in 2017]. When the track was finally ready, she recorded her demo vocals in a bathtub… Which might sound sexy, but the recording had a weird feedback. So we re-recorded it, and then mixed in the bathtub recordings.

VMAN You also have a song with Haddaway. How did that come together?

In 2010, I got Haddaway’s phone number from a mutual friend, who had told [Haddaway] that I’m a producer who DJed at the Marc Jacobs/V Magazine party, where Lady Gaga [also] performed, in 2009. [What he didn’t tell him] was that a lot of people left the party when Gaga stopped and I started DJing.

Anyway, I called Haddaway, apparently waking him up [in the process]. But then we ended up talking about Chicago house records. After I sent him a demo instrumental, he called back within 10 minutes, and left a vocal demo recording on my voicemail. Like his ’90s hit, “What Is Love,” our song, “My Love Is For Real,” is all about love.

VMAN What were the thoughts behind the album’s cover and title? Is “Wolfram Amadeus” a kind of alter ego or character?

W My first album’s cover was my mum feeding me as a baby, so the current cover should have been me feeding my mum now. But it ended up just as an old picture of me and my brother as teenagers. “Wolfram” is actually my real name, but I have used “Amadeus” as my second name for the last [few] years, mostly for party flyers or social media. When I had to come up with a name for the album, I didn’t want to be too serious about it. So that was the first thing that came into my mind; I saved my unreleased tracks in an “Amadeus” folder on my computer.

VMAN Where can we catch you performing in the near future?

W My next gigs are in Lyon, France, Kiev and Moscow… If they let me in.