Nervous Horizon’s co-founder and label honcho TSVI is back with a new release, Mediterraneo EP, his first solo project on the imprint since his 6-track Sogno in 2021.
As a homage to the sonic legacy that influenced the artist’s formative years, the five-track EP is inspired by the Mediterranean Progressive movement which became popular in Italy between the late 90s and the early 00s. At the time, italo dance music had a distinctive trance influence; producers like Gigi D’Agostino, Mauro Picotto and Mario Piú were among the most prominent artists of the scene.
On Mediterraneo EP, TSVI combines the elements of this iconic movement with contemporary drum patterns and his signature sound.
Five on Friday with Phin
1980 Recordings just released Ready For Work by Alejo MartinThe opening track, ‘Progressiva’, features a synth line evocative of 00s dance hits like Sydney Samson’s ‘Riverside’ or Federico Franchi ‘Cream’. With its steady groove and hands-in-the-air emotional breakdown, it is destined to be a festival anthem.
‘Vitamina H’ and ‘HHG’ take a less emotional approach, focusing on raw club energy. Dark melodies and Italian vocal samples dominate in ‘Vitamina H’, building up to a climatic frenzy of percussive triplets in the second half. ‘HHG’ borrows elements from HandzUp!, a trance subgenre which was popular in Germany and in various parts of Europe in the early 2000s. Both tracks are influenced by Raptor house, a genre of electronic music that originated in Caracas, Venezuela in the early 1990s, and ‘HHG’ features one of the originators of the genre, Dj Babatr, who helped pioneer the sound and is a huge inspiration for TSVI.
The last two tracks, ‘Parhasar’ and ‘Ultimo Impero’, are named after two legendary clubs in Turin, where progressive trance and hardstyle flourished in the early 1990s. Unlike the first three tracks of the project, where the production is almost entirely sample-based, in these final tunes there is a particular focus on sound design evoking a hypnotic energy which serves as the perfect closing for the record.
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