A day in the life of Dorion Fiszel

Dorion Fiszel is a unique kind of night bird. A DJ and producer, he is also the mastermind behind some of the records of critically-acclaimed French artist M. We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that Dorion is the happy owner of several alpacas, which he keeps in the countryside. For the purpose of this routine though, it’s in his Parisian flat, in the 18th arrondissement that he welcomed us, to talk partying when you’re sober, morning pints of beer, and waking up at 2pm.

My name is Dorion, I’m 32, single, passionate about and very much in love with music. I’ve been a DJ since my youth, and have somehow become a producer, composer, and record-maker since then. I’ve also picked up a few glitzy accessories along the way, such as slightly smoked glasses, a shiny gold chain, and bright and colourful suits, which I wear with pimp shoes. I think they actually bring more people to my parties than my sets do.

For me, life is about enjoying. And I mean enjoying to the fullest. My current routine revolves around giving everything I’ve got to the new queen of disco-pop, Corine. We work together on her music as well as the project’s overall art direction. I’m her shady producer, in a way. She’s my bleached beauty. The disco ball that’s guided my path these last three years. The fact that she got in touch with me at the very beginning of this musical fantasy to help her see it through has been a fantastic gift.

I’m also working on these new parties called "Je T'aime"; disco-ish gatherings on Thursdays in the red decaying baroque chapel that is Rouge Pigalle. Slowly but surely, these parties have given birth to something: an honest and magical hand extended to all partygoers, enabling them to detach themselves from their mundane lives to reach a free world, to completely fall in love for the duration of a party. I DJ at these parties for nearly the entire night, with support from my muses, almighty figures such as Madame Ette & Melissa Witt, illustrator Lavinia Jullien, performer Sam Quealy, as well as Le Filip and his crew of LIPSTRIP drag queens, whose amusing and sensitive shows provide us with much-needed breaks between our sweaty sessions on the dancefloor. All of this is held together by Rouge Pigalle’s incredible team: Sifu, Tao, and Moet.

I became a DJ and a producer by listening to Fatboy Slim, Michael Jackson, Alan Braxe, Daft Punk, and Cut Killer. They paved the way to my musical emancipation in the late 90s/early 00s. I got to hone my skills as a producer with Brad Thomas Ackley and later Matthieu Chedid (who performs under the aforementioned “M” stage name). My collaboration with M resulted in an album and a fun track called Mojo, which were released in 2012.

Standard workdays are fortunately not part of my vocabulary. Each day is different, based on whether I need to go to the studio or not, whether I’m DJing at a party in the evening or if I did so the night before. One thing is for sure though, morning-afters are never rough, as I always stay away from smoking, drinking, and drugs. I mostly spend my mornings in bed thinking about everything, and more often than not about nothing.

I wake up between 10am and 2pm and drink a cup of Genmaicha tea, with ginger, curcuma, cashews, a banana, and a massive pint of Kronenbourg, of course.

I regularly use the natural mattifying face moisturiser with prickly pear oil to moisturise my face after showering. Needless to say, I only ever shower with the Virginia cedar gel and its mystical scent.

To make sure my morning-afters aren’t too harsh, I stay on a permanent high without having to resort to drugs. How so, might you ask. Very simply by having a deep love for making people and myself happy, by striving to keep my child’s joy alive, and obviously by drinking my pint of beer every morning (duh!).

I travel a lot for work, from Los Angeles to the smallest towns you could possibly imagine. Over time, I’ve become quite proficient in English and local extinct dialects only spoken by people over the age of 70. Jet-setting has its advantages.

I consider my “work” to be the best possible way to log off. Does that mean I should learn to log off from logging off, or would that be the equivalent of logging back on? Is it something I feel I need? Or maybe I’m already connected… to myself.

I used to work out a lot and follow a specific diet to add mad gains to the skinny and complex-ridden body my teenage life had left me with. I’ve calmed down since, and humbly stick to walking or running during the weekend to try and evacuate the energy surplus I build up over the week. Or I go running with my alpacas on my parents’ land in the countryside while listening to my mum’s web radio - radio DEJA VU - on full blast.