INTERVIEW: The Italoboyz

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e99
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INTERVIEW: The Italoboyz

Post by e99 »

THE ITALOBOYZ SPEAK!

It was Ricardo Villalobos who really propelled the Italoboyz into the stratosphere by pushing their track ‘Viktor Casanova’ at every gig. Now world-famous as "the opera-singer track", it was picked up to launch Claude VonStroke's new, deeper label Mothership Records, and is now championed not only by VonStroke but Loco Dice, Sven Väth and Luciano, helped along by a remix by man of the moment Samin. But they've also been releasing on Gumption, Einmaleins Musik and Safari Electronique - a fusion of minimalism, hi-tech funk, live and new sounds, resonant with the acid-house approach of the past but also with an eye to the seductiveness of the new. And now on Sat they'll be playing at Tim Sheridan's Veryverywrongindeed warehouse party with Dub Kult and Andre Crom... buy tickets at

http://www.dontstayin.com/uk/london/war ... ent-151458 or http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/user/?region ... ent=243317

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A lot of people won't realise this, but the Italoboyz actually live in London. Why did you come here? Where are you both from?

It's something that happened in 2001 when Marco moved to London and was joined by Fede a couple of years later. We are both from Mogliano Veneto in Italy, a cool not very cool small town near to our beloved Venice. Nowadays, someone who wants to move somewhere there's an interesting music scene goes to Berlino, 7 years ago it was not that obvious, anyway London is amazing, it's the city that gives you the chance to do anything you want either with music, art, fashion....anything that involves creativity, London is the place.

You've had a lot of success with Viktor Casanova on Claude VonStroke's label new, deeper label Mothership. But you're also releasing on labels from Safari Electronique to Treibstoff. And your biography talks about your approach to music being organic and hybrid, blending lots of different elements, which doesn't sound like the textbook contemporary techno approach of being uptight and controlling about music. Is there a plan, or do you jump into the studio and just see what happens? How does the studio work for the two of you?

The main factor we think is that we don't care about sounding in a certain way. I mean, our music taste and what we like to dance to is pretty wide, so we don't conform to a particular sound like, let's say, "minimal". Obviously this has been influencing our last few years, but it is only one factor into the whole music thing, house and techno are what we have been always very much fascinated by and is what we think we deliver, obviously according to our own idea...

When we make music there's always a plan, ‘cos we tend to work on ideas, and then building a track around 'em. ’Vikor Casanova’ is a clear example, as we got this "illumination" by hearing that piece of beauty that the vocal is, and around it we've worked on finding all the sounds/structure that needed to be done...
Actually, the track was finished the day after an amazing party where we went to on the 30th of December last year ...I remember that night was a-m-a-z-i-n-g and so inspirational, and the "loop" of the night was in my head all next day, so I've transferred it into the track... the clubbing thing is one of the most important factors for us - without going to parties (and still doing whenever possible!) for soo long, during these years, our music research and background would miss a capital stone! Studio work is great, ‘cos we both work separately and then we put all together; sometimes Fede starts a track and then pass it over to Marco, or the other way round, whoever has more feeling with it or simply has an idea on what to make the track rotating around, goes for it... that's also a very good thing ‘cos there are many different aspects of our very, very different personalities being represented in our music..

You've specialised in very, very, very long afterhours - days of playing great music. But you've also had some fantastic hits. Do you prefer to produce or to DJ?

We're born as DJs and we re-invented ourselves as producers. Initially we didn't even wanted to get too involved it the production side ‘cos we thought it was not our thing, but the more we've been getting into it, the more we've been having fun and gratification, so as long as there is the fun in doing something... beside that, we think that lots of people really overestimates our music... I mean, it's great, but sometimes we receive comments and feedbacks that are making us smile so much ‘cos on our hand we know who the real "maestros" are, and it's not us...we have sooo much still to improve, especially from the engineering side.

You've also held down long residencies with clubs like FESH at 333. What do you think is going on in London at the moment? Do you play more often in our European capitals, and why?

FESH at 333 was ages ago, when we just started of our "career" as london DJs...it was brilliant, we have so many magic memories of those days...now obviously lots has changed - thank god we progressed quite a bit and we definitely play so much more abroad than in London. Here is very difficult to explain what is going on but the house/techno scene, it's not easy.....there are the major clubs and a few very established parties, beside that it is not easy to promote parties and stuff, even if you call international names of the scene. In London people go either to the well-known party/club or where there's no charge at the door (can't blame 'em though...) I've seen lots of very nice looking parties with names, location, everything, but with 30 people inside...

Why do you think Viktor Casanova took off? Was the support from Claude VonStroke or the video of Sven Väth singing along (check it out here)? Was it the use of "real" samples (and who is the woman anyhow)? Was it just the sense of fun?

Lots of things...we have been really lucky that we came out with the right idea at the right time...also Ricardo Villalobos help us a lot, ‘cos he was the only person who we gave the track to for quite long time, so people initially was convinced that it was one of his tracks, or even him playing the voice on top of some music...people want emotions, want vibrant feelings, and are definitely bored of monotone music... and ‘Viktor Casanova’ is a track that gives big emotions, we had people writing us and saying the most incredible things regarding how special, how sensual and so on ....

And finally, can we have a current top 10

1 Matt John - Olga dancekowski - bar 25
2 Ricardo Vllalobos - lugom ix - freesbee tracks
3 Stefan Tretau - ellis perry (mikael stravostrand mix) - Sounderground
4 Reboot - Charlotte - below
5 Dubfire - I feel speed (Audion remix) - CDR
6 Paul Brtschitsch - hook up - leena music
7 Rune & Sydenham - elephant - Avocado records
8 Jaxson - smoke machine - freakwaves
9 MarcAshken - It's just a groove - CDR
10 Markus Fix- the russian - cecille



The Italoboyz play at VeryVeryWrongIndeed’s Warehouse Party in London This Saturday. Please click here for full details.
spacewhitey
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Post by spacewhitey »

nice post!! love their work : )
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