And while the brothers suggest there isn’t much of a scene in their native homeland at present, they admit there are a lot of young producers and artists doing some very interesting things. “There are some good things happening here,” explains Davide. “They are good as producers but unfortunately, there are really very few good clubs that can host them. That is why I love to play outside my country; the people tend to be more open minded and they just love to dance – and they don’t care to show how finely they are or are not dressed.”
Historically, the brothers were both involved with music going back some three decades. Davide continues: “I just used to play guitar with friends in the ’70s,” he explains. “When a couple of them asked me to found a ‘new wave band’ as they needed a bass player, things were on. We called the band N.O.I.A. and started to play a unique kind of electronic music, thanks to first affordable drum machines and synths.”
In kind, his brother – followed a similar path – but approached things a little differently. “I spent my childhood playing the electronic instruments of my brother and it was inevitable that I would fall in love with music,” giggles Alessandro. “When I was 11 I founded my first band and later I became a DJ, playing mainly punk and new wave music around the mid 1980s.”
Musically then, the lads are still pumping out EPs although less prolifically than they did in previous years. “We are thinking about going back to our roots when techno and house was more ‘friendly’ and not as aggressive as it is today,” justifies Davide. With that, their label too is kicking along and their release pipeline remains strong. Alessandro explains: “I found the label Italo Business in 2006 when I met DJs Dandi and Ugo – and as the executive producer of a track I made, I asked them to make a remix. At that time everybody was sick of the way the mainstream house music labels worked, so we decided to give life to a low budget record company and release our stuff together. Our idea was and still is to give a chance to unknown or not so popular producers, to show their talent in making new electronic music.”
Otherwise, the brothers aren’t particularly preoccupied with genres or fads, rather preferring to play through the music in their own, seemingly uncharted way. “We are not the kind of people that care about specific genres. Over the last few years, we have played different kinds of music, from blues to punk, from trip hop to techno. As far back as in 1981, I recorded some tracks, later to be released by Mario Boncaldo and Tony Carrasco going under the name Klein + M.B.O, with releases such as Dirty Talk considered to be the amongst the first Chicago house records,” Davide professes proudly.
“And in the meantime, I will continue to run my band N.O.I.A, and make the music the world calls Italo Disco. My brother and I will still do dance music under different nicknames as well, but we are also working on several hard-rock/punk albums with a couple of indie bands too. We just make music; sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not so good – but honestly I don’t know how to define it.”
Finally, the brothers are chuffed about the opportunity to get to Australia for their inaugural tour. “Our set is a little different,” surmises the affable Allesandro. “We don’t play back-to-back as such because Davide is not a DJ. When we play together though it’s a really wild live set; I like to play tracks through my laptop and a couple of controllers, rearranging techno and house tracks with loops, effects and funny mash ups. And I always like to change my sets up during a new gig. Also, I always try to catch the crowd and to understand their feeling. In the last few months, I’ve really slowed down the BPM and included more songs with a really nice hook. It seems to be working.”
BY RK
