inner nerd

This may be the single greatest manifestation of Italo every pressed. Who the hell is this guy?! Claudio (Clay) Pedrini Came out of nowhere, cooked up this tasty Italo biscuit and then went back into the night kitchen forever. Even when you can find it, be prepared to dish out upwards of $500 for an excellent copy. Fortunately for vinyl nerds hit by the recession, this has been officially repressed by I.D. Limited, complete with reinterpreted cover artwork. You’ll have to pay shipping from Europe, tho.

SCHEMATIC: A short music video clip and cover artwork…

Read the rest of this entry »

This unstoppable Italo electro-disco jam from 1982 spawned the fabled Fuzz Dance label. Italo master Maurizio Dami (aka Alexander Robotnick) was heavily involved with this label as both a producer and remixer. Does anyone out there know if he produced this track, too?

Here’s the spacey instrumental version ripped from my vinyl copy.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

SCHEMATIC: Record scans and Alexander Robotnick dropping some disco knowledge… Read the rest of this entry »

Wait…Who? Don’t let the peculiar name distract you from the raw genius of this track. This masterpiece marked the genesis of Italo thoroughbred label Il Discotto Productions in 1982. By the way, you can learn a ton about vintage vocoders by watching our vocoder youtube playlist or checking out our friends over at Matrixsynth.

SCHEMATIC: More vocoder intel…

Read the rest of this entry »

100% addicted to this song. Which is a serious problem, because other than this single, solitary video, I can find no trace of the band’s existence. Anywhere. Are vinyl pressings gathering dust somewhere in Argentina? A handsome reward for any information leading to my successful capture of this track on wax.

SCHEMATIC: The real story…

Read the rest of this entry »

Virtually Nothing is known about this Montréal group, but I’ve deduced what is going on here:

Iko was an android trio from the future that traveled back in time to 1982 in order to learn what it meant to be human in the decades just preceding the merger of man and machine. Archetypal and powerful nerd music.

Only 500 copies of this LP sold. So if you account for DJ/radio promos, maybe 1,000 were even pressed, making this gem truly obscure. The $100+ price tag for this album is one of the deals of the century.

‘83 is presented here in its entirety, ripped from my mint copy at 24bit/96kHz and converted to MP3 at 196 kbps for optimal sound quality. I also found and posted two unreleased tracks (9 & 10) for posterity.

SCHEMATIC: MP3s, album review and cover artwork…

Read the rest of this entry »

A synthy, robo-erotic slow jam created by two guys that look (and sound) like perverted middle school math teachers. Sung in Québecois French and vocoded to perfection. Need I say more? Pretty robo-heady lyrics, so check out the SCHEMATIC section for the original French and English translations.

Here is their (not so) live performance on Musi-Video from the early 1980s.

SCHEMATIC: Hot cover art, original record scans, Montréal distributor’s sticker and LYRICS… Read the rest of this entry »

No, Michael Stipe and did not dabble in Italo. Actaually, Computer Communication was the second of four releases to appear on the short-lived Xanadu label from Italy in 1983. This is a readily available and largely underrated Italo classic 12″ that you can still buy in excellent condition for around $20. They’re pretty tough to find for sale in the US, so you’ll probably have to pay international air postage from Italy if you’re dying for the track.

SCHEMATIC: Automan 11 bootleg reissue…

Read the rest of this entry »

I want this record SO badly that I am reluctant to even make other people aware of it. The third release on the legendary italo label Fuzz Dance.

SCHEMATIC: Bootleg reissue…

Read the rest of this entry »