Pitchfork
82
In the summer of 1989, Massimino Lippoli, Angelino Albanese, Andrea Gemolotto, and Claudio Collino made a dance track that sampled a German record (Manuel Göttsching’s 1984 proto-techno masterpiece E2-E4), got a remix from a Detroit legend (Derrick May), gave the track a Spanish title (“Sueño Latino”), and made it into a big hit in Ibiza. Few of its fans could trace the track back to its originating country, which wasn’t a glitch so much as a feature of Italian dance music of that particular era, expertly mimicking sounds and trends from elsewhere while seeming to come from—if not nowhere—then from some idealized land. In compiling Welcome to Paradise: Italian Dream House 1989-93, a twenty-two track collection of this rather fruitful five-year-period, Dutch DJ/producer Young Marco searches for a golden thread connecting them all, a defining characteristic of “Italian dream house.” Of late, it’s appeared to influence a new generation of producers. I can hear it of late in Anthony Naples’ forthcoming “Sky Flowers,” on the Early Sounds roster and the re-booted Rome imprint, Vibraphone Records.
American house music has its roots in resistance and empowerment for its queer and minority cultures and the British variant that soon followed reveled in a darker, druggier edge. Yet Italian house music, as Young Marco configures it here, is almost exclusively euphoric, the perfect sound to emanate from a land of chiseled Adonises, columnated ruins, and the Tuscan sun. Not a care from this earthly realm arises here. Almost every selection here can trace its lineage back to Larry Levan’s Paradise Garage and the evocative house productions rendered by Larry Heard (as well as the house music beginning to emanate from New Jersey), with Open Spaces’ flickering “Sunrise Paradise Garage” being a particularly luminous example, a perfect meld between dark room deep house and sun-kissed Balearic.
For a country whose greatest literary work describes paradiso in precise detail, such beauty is a given. And for most Italians, utopia connotes the unblemished beauty of Botticelli’s Primavera and almost every track here showcases a chord progression, an airy atmosphere, a heavenly choir of voices, or a breathless drum machine build that suggests dance music perfection. Edenic ambience wafts in on K2’s “In My Garden” and a gurgling river and that telltale loon sample flow throughout the beatific build of Last Rhythm’s “Last Rhythm (Ambient Mix).”
On the set opener, Key Tronics Ensemble’s “Calypso Of House (Paradise Mix)” is nine dreamy minutes that encapsulate every sound to come: ever-ascendant house piano, quickening house rhythms, heaving synth strings, gauzy ambience that’s revealed once the beat drops out, and a rambunctious vocal trill that punctuates the track. Even a track entitled “Paranoia” (credited to Don Pablo’s Animals, who boast no less than five singles with the word “Ibiza” in them) feels anything but.
The second volume highlights Italian dream house’s primary obsessions. Or, as two words whispered put it, “sex” and “spirit.” Not to be confused with the progressive house legend, Sasha’s sublime “A Key to Heaven for a Heavenly Trance” highlights the set, taking a pattern of tribal drums, divine sweeps of keys, and a burbling synth line that resembles “Voodoo Ray.” Similarly, while Leo Anibaldi would make his name doing dark, acid-tinged techno through the rest of the ’90s and into the 21st century, his submission “Elements” (from 1991) shows off a lush side of his productions that he would soon turn away from. Misty new age atmospheres and elegant piano lines coupled with a tough beat to make a deep house beauty.
So rich and creamy is each track here that listening straight through both sets feels almost too decadent, akin to gorging on gelato every day. There are no earthly cares to be found within the house music here, making for a sense of release even amid the spiritual release that such music originally brought its audience. Even the utterance of the word “problem” on Now Now Now’s track of the same name gets immediately swaddled in heavenly voices. It’s as if one is up on a cloud, now looking down on such difficulties of the world.
Wed Apr 05 05:00:00 GMT 2017