Vinylogue
Sara Mautone
Italian DJ and fashion photographer Sara Mautone blends slow artistry with deep vinyl knowledge, calculated digging, and most of all, patience.
Sara Mautone has two records lost in the mail, and she refuses to finish her next recorded DJ set without them.
Poste Italiane, the postal service in Italy, has been unreliable lately, and she’s been waiting on these crucial records for weeks. What is she waiting on? She won’t reveal their titles (even off the record). Not out of a desire to gatekeep, but because it feels personal, like a secret she’s not ready to share.
Although she’d like for the records to arrive, she doesn’t feel rushed. For Mautone, taking her time and getting things right are central to her artistry.
It’s so easy to access music now that you can get lost. Having that limitation — the physical record — it helps you bring something more authentic, something more honest.
Sara Mautone
A fashion photographer featured in Vogue Italia and Harper’s Bazaar turned DJ, Mautone is one of Italy’s emerging vinyl specialists. She’s performed on celebrated broadcasts like NTS and The Loft, as well as at venues across Europe and the U.S. You might know her name, or you might not — and she’s perfectly okay with that. Mautone prioritizes organic growth over rushing her career, always focusing on picking the right record.
She feels comfortable with her sound and craft, aiming to go deeper, not bigger. She doesn’t want to DJ full-time. Instead, she spends her time teaching at the Istituto Marangoni in Milan. Without the pressure of relying on DJing for income, she can follow her instincts, waiting until the perfect record arrives, and taking breaks to refresh, like she’s finishing up doing now.
“Sometimes I just want time to develop my sound, to be at home and listen to music,” she says. “I’m lucky I don’t rely financially on DJing. Otherwise, I’d be in trouble. Sometimes you spend more on records than what you get paid. No, I’m joking — kind of. I took this time off, and now I’m slowly getting back into DJing again.”
From Cameras to Vinyl
Before she ever touched turntables, Mautone stood behind a camera. She started nearly 13 years ago, working in fashion and creative direction. Music was always a touchpoint, though, and one she intended to explore.
That interest led her to shoot and write for Rumore, a long-running Italian music magazine. Her beat focused on interviews, specifically psych bands, a genre that she’s recently rediscovered. During this time, Mautone wasn’t collecting records, but she saw it in her future. She had always been drawn to them, in part for their aesthetic, and for the challenge and barriers involved with collecting. What some saw as hurdles, she saw as a marker of effort and care.
“I think it’s so easy to access music now that you can get lost. Having that limitation, the physical record, it helps you bring something more authentic, something more honest.”
You wouldn’t know it based on her current in-depth collection or acumen, but Mautone only started collecting seven to eight years ago. It officially began during a trip to Hong Kong. “I went to this nice shop, White Noise Records, and it marked a shift for me. I was already immersed in underground music, but this felt different. It was a tactile, emotional connection to sound.”
Her first pick mattered. At the time, she gravitating toward breezy Japanese pop, which informed that initial record: Rainbow.
Two weeks later, thanks to connections from her Rumore writings, she spun her first few records at Le Mellotron in Paris and recorded her set. It hooked her.
I listen to a lot of music, and sometimes, weeks later, a song will pop back into my head. That’s when I know it made a mark. That’s when I will buy it.
Sara Mautone
After that first set, Mautone noticed a change: she started paying more attention to her music consumption. Like many DJs in recent years, she worked her way through YouTube, watching sets and virtually digging for new finds. The algorithm offered everything from Marine Flower (Science Fantasy). It resonated.
They started emailing, and Olivas invited Mautone to record a “deep easy listening” guest mix and interview for the site. That exposure led to more mixes and invitations. Following that, her network grew through an unlikely source — Discogs. While getting deeper into collecting Brazilian records, people started messaging her on the site during the transaction process, recognizing her from the Fond/Sound mix. Some of those sellers ended up being promoters, which later led to gigs.
In one instance, Mautone bonded with a seller over a copy of the soca house record Errol Ballantyne. The two have visited each other before, and in September, when Mautone is in the States, she’s staying with him.
“Shout out to Clarence — my Discogs friend. I love him,” she says with a laugh.
Building Her Collection
Mautone maintains a healthy collection of between 500 and 1,000 records. Her approach is intuitive, not systematic. There’s no rush to complete discographies or chase hype. In fact, she describes her digging style as “slow,” but that’s what makes it feel intentional and earned.
“If I had started my collection 10 years earlier, I don’t know if it would have felt so special,” she says. “By the time I started, my taste had matured. I started late, so I was okay with spending more because I knew what I wanted.”
While many styles appear in her crates, Mautone’s records include true gems, some of which have sold on Discogs only a handful of times. There’s Coisas Do Espírito, certainly not a classic found in thousands of other collections.
Her shelves are full of cuts like these. They’re the kind of records crate-diggers fawn over, found either by luck or intense study. Many aren’t on streaming sites or being nudged by algorithms. They’re found by crawling through digital rabbit holes, building community with sellers and other selectors, or rummaging through the used bins. Along with researching, waiting is crucial. She needs to sit with tracks to see if they’re really special or just catchy.
“I listen to a lot of music, and sometimes, weeks later, a song will pop back into my head,” she says. “That’s when I know it made a mark. That’s when I will buy it. I don’t have 10 records from the same label. I choose carefully. I’m not an accumulator.”
In her Fond/Sound interview, she itted to buying 99% of her records on Discogs because its large inventory gives her space to think before buying. However, she’s gone digging across continents. She recalls favorites like Metropolis in Milan, known for its library music; Discos Vantes in San Francisco, full of South American tropical music; and the currently defunct Organica Records in Naples, run by friends who also own Basic Club, her favorite in Italy.
Creating a Personal Style
A wide-ranging collection is integral for Mautone’s mixes and performances. She favors a sophisticated, somewhat cosmic sound. Otherwise, she’s genre agnostic, preferring to drift from’70s Brazilian boogie to dreamy Balearic cuts and Japanese pop,
“I like a lot of genres, and I’d love to get to a point where I can seamlessly play across all of them in one set,” she says. “Right now, I’m still exploring. People are often surprised by what I play. They might think of me as more of a disco or Balearic DJ, but there’s more I want to express.”
Her selecting style also pulls from experience in photography. “I think about music and images in the same way,” she says. “Photographers like Paolo Roversi are my favorites. They shot blurry, moving images, and the music I like reflects that kind of mood.”
The connection to her visual arts extends to storytelling. She compares creating a set to photo shoot — putting the clothes together, applying make up, and nailing the scenery to create a world within a world. When contemplating a set, she does the same, aiming to weave everything together and usher the listener through a different space. Before that process begins, though, she picks out colors that will guide her picks.
For track selection, she favors cuts that bridge multiple genres. Right now, one of her favorites is “Dream Lover,” from Calypso Zest,” a funky mid-tempo track from Trinidad, that took her three to four years to track down.
Are the ones that take longer the most meaningful? She nods.“Yeah.”
“These records have that organic feel, but they also connect with the other styles,” she says. “They’re chill, elegant, but at the same time, they can move people. They’re very intense, especially ‘Calypso Zest.’ When I was touring in the U.S. last September, I played at this venue called Bar Part Time. I played it at the beginning of my set, and people literally screamed because it’s so intense. And then, they started to dance. I love that. It felt so natural.”
Following the U.S. trip, Mautone slowed down by choice, taking the opportunity to listen, find new material, and recharge. Now at the end of that period, she’s signed on with an agent and is preparing to get back into performing. Still, she isn’t dropping her day job. Instead, she’s easing into the next chapter of her career on her own time.
“I told [my agent], ‘You’ll have to be patient. I’m not going to be the DJ posting a new set every month or updating Instagram stories’ … I’ve always tried not to rush anything,” she says. “I only say yes to parties I truly believe in, where it’s about the music. That’s what matters most to me.”
Interested in reading more about the most influential players in vinyl culture? Check out our features with Vinyl Souk.
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