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The compilation’s closing track is a 2016 remix of —originally recorded in a garage in Pescara. The new version adds a modern kick drum but keeps the imperfect, human-sounding synth solo. In the liner notes, Ferrante wrote: “Italo Disco was never cool. It was too romantic, too cheap, too Italian. But that’s why it survives. Because real joy sounds a little bit out of tune.” And somewhere in 2016, on a rainy night in Milan or Melbourne or Minneapolis, someone pressed play on Vol. 1 , and for four minutes—the length of a lost 12-inch single—the 1980s weren’t a memory. They were the present.
Prologue: The Lost Decade In the summer of 2016, the world was streaming trap beats and minimal house. But in a dimly lit studio in Milan, 54-year-old producer Marco “The Admiral” Ferrante sat surrounded by 1,500 vinyl records—many of them unplayed for 30 years. His mission: to compile Italo Disco 80 – Vol. 1 for the revived Disco Fla label (short for Flashback Classics ). The subtitle was a whisper from the past: “Riscopri il futuro” (Rediscover the future). Act 1: The Forgotten Masters Italo Disco was never just music. Born from the Italian post-punk and synth-pop explosion of 1980–1985, it was a fever dream of Roland TR-808 drum machines, Korg polyphonic synths, and lyrics sung in broken English by men in oversized sunglasses and women with hair like electric storms. Tracks like “I Like Chopin” (Gazebo), “Dolce Vita” (Ryan Paris), and “Happy Song” (Baby’s Gang) were European club anthems—but by 1990, they had vanished, buried under house music and grunge. V.A. - Italo Disco 80- Vol. 1 -2016 Disco- -Fla...
At first, nothing. Then, a Reddit thread in r/synthwave: “Is this the real Italo or some AI fake?” Then, a shoutout from a Romanian DJ collective. Then, a full review in Resident Advisor : “Not a cash-grab. A time machine.” The compilation’s closing track is a 2016 remix
Ferrante, a former DJ at the legendary in Rimini, had witnessed the genre’s birth and burial. But in 2015, a strange thing happened: his nephew, a 19-year-old DJ named Elena, played a remix of Koto’s “Visitors” at a Berlin underground party. The crowd went feral. “They didn’t know the original,” she told Marco. “But they felt it. The arpeggios, the melancholy… it’s like nostalgia for a time they never lived.” It was too romantic, too cheap, too Italian