Carlos Manaça

Carlos Manaca is one of the well-known Portuguese DJs/Producers. Started to work as a professional DJ in 1986, in his hometown, Barreiro, near Lisbon, the Portuguese capital, after doing several students Party's on his own High School. Being one of the Portuguese DJs involved in 1989’s Acid House movement, it was when he moved to the North of Portugal that his career took off. As resident DJ of two of the most important clubs in the North of Portugal, “CAIS 447” (1992 to 1995) and “ROCK’s CLUB” (1995 to 1996), he played with almost all of the International DJs. Name like Armand Van Elden (1995), Danny Tenaglia (1995), Laurent Garnier (1996), Underworld playing live (1996), Jeff Mills, Ritchie Hawtin, Dj Sneak, among many others played in Portugal, for the first time, at “Rocks Club”, making this club an reference in Portugal and abroad.

As a producer, his work started to have international exposure in 1994 with the Portuguese live act "O.L.N.", an Oporto duo formed by Paulo Rocha (now Paul Jays) and João Correia. O.L.N.´s first 12" was immediately picked up by TRIBAL AMERICA / UK in 1995, as O.L.N.-"Oporto Deep Cuts EP", featuring two Carlos Manaça’s remixes of "Reboot 144" and “Places of Pleasure”. In 1999 creates with Paul Jays the now worldwide known MAGNA RECORDINGS PORTUGAL, one of the well-known and respected Portuguese Dance Labels. In 2001 co-produces Manaca, Chus & Ceballos “The Strong Rhythm”, a track released by Stereo Productions (2001), and by Magna Recordings (2002) (and later licensed to several other Labels), included in Deep Dish’s “GLOBAL Underground: Moscow”, and reaching sales charts all over the globe.

In 2009 “The Strong Rhythm” was remixed by Canadian tribal masters D-UNITY, and peaked #1 at Beatport’s “MINIMAL SALES CHART” for 3 consecutive weeks. This and other successful releases allowed Carlos Manaça to play in countries like Japan, Switzerland, Brazil, Luxemburg, Poland, Croatia, Germany, Mexico, Russia, USA and Spain, where he plays since 1993, and where he lives since 2002, after finishing an Audio Engineering Degree in SAE Institute Madrid, the well know English Audio College.

With a DJ career with more than 35 years, Carlos Manaca is one of the main Portuguese DJ’s and one of the Producers responsible for the so-called “Portuguese Sound”. His sets are very characteristic; they can go from Tech House to Techno, always full of ethnic influences.