WOEBOT

Easy Going-Fear(Claudio Simonetti from Goblin, also produced Kasso which was big at the Paradise Garage and Vivien Vee, disco into New Wave. I-F covered this on the Parallax Corp record.

Macho-I'm a Man-Yes a cover of Steve Winwood(Cerrone did Give Me Some Lovin' as Kongas, I think) it's about 1,000 minutes long and terribly annoying, except for the break, which is longer then most songs, and is damn near amazing.

Black Devil Disco Club-very mysterious record, but very wonderful. I've only seen a copy once. Very prog, very dark, and somehow sounds like Black Dog. I think it's being reissued.

Charly-Spacer Woman-I've jumped from a more late 70s disco sound to the more typical electro sounding italo sound. This is rare and has been bootlegged. It's just perfect, sexy female vocals(or vocoders) + kraftwerk + gay disco ='s Italo-disco. This is on Mixed Up at the Hague, as is:

Mr. Flagio-Take a Chance-Two italian producers covering a Material/Nonah Hendryx track to suprising results. How suprising? This is perhaps the best 12" of all time! Italo disco was never as dry as the current electro-clash it inspired. Even I-F and Metro Area know to add on the congas and there's nothing wrong with real instruments as well. Vocoded vox mixed with real vox, a melancholy melody that cannot be beat.-

The sound of a lonely, but funky robot, only ever equalled by Man Parrish on the b-side Heatstroke(NY breakdance/electro and certain aspects of Paradise Garage/Loft Disco were very related to Italo, obviously) It's important to note that many us, primarily canadian and NY club labels were importing this stuff. Importe/12, Emergency(who prior and during Shannon's Let the Music Play proto freestyle era were mostly releasing Italo such as Kano, Bo Boss, etc, 25 West released Klein + MBO)

Also...Scotch-Penguin Invasion, pure proto-techno, Kano's I'm Ready and Holly Dolly(the model for Sharivari?) etc

Gaz Nevada-I.C. Love Affair-Just a personal fave, first heard on a deephousepage.com Ron Hardy mix from 1985. Don't tell me those gay black DJs weren't into this stuff!

Klein + MBO-Dirty Talk-an obvious choice but this is the big one. Huge in clubs all over the world, an influence on New Order, still played constantly in various mixes. The true test of italo lovers is...well it's not a test, but 90% of the vocals are just terrible. I-F left the vocals of this cut as well as Doctor's Cat's Feel the Drive off of Mixed Up at the Hague, I think the vocals add accessibility and a certain charm to the dancefloor.

Dharma-Plastic Doll-It worked both ways and NY club music and british New Wave seeped heavily into italo-disco, and the NY'ers played this stuff and maybe people thought it was freestyle music from queens. In any case most of the kids dancing in Bay Ridge and Jersey were Italian to begin with. Ok a few generations removed.

Fuzz Dance EP-Maurizio Damo produced 4 "act" sort of and they are all amazing, Alexander Robotnik's Problemes D'Amour appears as a Francois K. instrumental edit for the dancefloor and the other songs are pure Italo-New Wave Disco. When I found this record it felt like some kind of New Wave holy-grail, like damn, I found the best new wave record ever and no new wavers knew about it because it's an italian disco record. It also sounds like Madonna and Falco, but in a really really good way. It's on Sire, who knew what they were doing.

The mid 80s things got really big, like big production and big vocals and tacky as all get out but I'll drop two worthy tracks that are maybe the last really good italo records. I think around 86/87 it goes sour and comes back as the kind of eurodance that I don't want to hear anyone defending...

Fun Fun-Happy Station