“The Italian thing, there’s something about it.”
The summer of 1981 was a legendary one on the eastern side of Lago di Garda. Daniele Baldelli was creating a new sound at a club called Cosmic, in a DJ booth designed to look like a space helmet. The dance floor was unpredictable, the future was still wide open; drugs coming in from the North hadn’t taken over the scene yet. People arrived sunsoaked, expecting a journey.
The summer of 2020 was a memorable one too. Duane Island - real name Dan Komanoff - was in Manhattan, back in his childhood bedroom. Days were long but he was mostly inside. The view from the room’s window was just another brick wall, although for a few moments a day, a bit of light would hit the portable studio where he would jam after work. His brother was around, too, so Dan enlisted him on keys. When their parents left for a weeklong vacation, the party began: they could jam louder and smoke inside.
Armed with a dropbox of disco breaks a friend had just ripped from his collection, Dan spent the week chopping 16 bar loops and writing bass lines under his brother's airy pad progressions. Italo gems dug from the annals of discogs had been the soundtrack of Dan's year so far, and the brothers used these sounds to transport... more
credits
released June 11, 2021
Written and produced by Dan Komanoff
Keys by Alex Komanoff
Mixed by Maxwell Reid and Dan Komanoff
Mastered by Anne Taegert at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin
Center label design by Aaron Schoenfelder