Analogic Density is a label pushing acid and techno and going back to the machines that founded that sound. A new wave of musicians continuing the Italian electronic project
Italy can be overlooked when it comes to electronics, overshadowed by the likes of Britain, Germany and Detroit. But there is a rich seam of machine music running through the country. Lory D and Sounds Never Seen pioneered techno, Leo Anibaldi was a frontrunner of ambient abstraction whilst Marco Passarani and D’arcangelo brought analogue warmth to the masses. In recent times there have been other Italians continuing this proud history. Minimal Rome. Love Blast. And a new name can be added to that growing list; Analogic Density.
The label,established last year by Marco Moreno Graziano, is going back to the hardware roots of the movement. The imprint boss, releasing as Lowfreq77, hails from the small northern town of Casale Monferrato. By his teens he had “discovered electronic music and the opportunity to create groove with keyboard, sampler and computer.” A self confessed machine junkie Moreno Graziano shared space on the first EP, Time and Machines, with Ruggero Patrizi aka Labarome T.M.I. A thick mist sits over the 12”. Dense beats and rolling 303 bars clouds the entire outing. Both artists, despite working independently, have a similar angle. Layers of textured tones are built atop one another as tracks of devastating potential burr from speakers.
These are tracks that are steeped in the 90s. Lowfreq77 reflects on that time in Italy as I quiz him on local matters: “I was lucky to live the highest expression of electronic music in Italy; in the middle of ‘90s Rome was the center of the techno and free parties and Turin the center of progressive techno.”
The label’s focus is on homegrown talent and two newcomers were recently added for the Rising Plant release. Industrial images darken the cover in ash and black, a visual precursor for the contents. XeRoSoReX (Eros Souvey) and SOUR (Massimiliano Dorigo) offer up two tracks each. Souvey opens with the rasping rhythms of “Metasphere.” Bold and blackened, light is removed before “Gears of Acid” ups the tempo. As the room begins to spin SOUR arrives with his speeding percussion. BPMs rise as drums eviscerate all. Filth clad squawk screams as percussion pounds in a dancefloor death-race.
“In the last years unfortunately I’ve heard a lot of flat music without soul,” mused Moreno Graziano in our conversation. I know what he means. This is an artist born out of the fire and brimstone of the 90s scene, but amidst the raw rhythms lies a “soul.” Analogic Density is a label pushing acid and techno and going back to the machines that founded that sound. A new wave of musicians continuing the Italian electronic project and I can tell you this, I’m excited by what they’re doing.
For more info visit analogicdensity.it.
