Chromatics/Glass Candy/Farah/Mirage/Professor Genius

After Dark (Italians Do It Better Records)

After Dark is a compilation of vinyl and unreleased cuts from Troubleman Unlimited offshoot label, Italians Do It Better. Accordingly, it could be a mess, a lumpy sampler with no flow. Label compilations, especially those released by fledgling labels with only a few acts and releases, are generally useful for flipping through and finding interesting sounds… but little else. Italians Do It Better have dodged that bullet by two hairs. First, Johnny Jewel produces a majority of the music, and if he doesn’t produce the rest of it, someone is sharing drum machines. Second, even though the acts range from Portland to Texas to New Jersey and over into Europe, they all have one spiritual home: Italy, early-80s, at the Discothèque.

Italo-disco was a European strain of disco, mostly centered in Italy and Germany, but leaping over into the rest of Western Europe and, eventually, back over into America. In Europe, disco didn’t suffer the violent death it did in America, and it was therefore allowed to openly grow both with technology and the artistic maturation of its artists. The beat slowed, the strings and horns and cheese dropped back, minimalism became a virtue. There was a lot of diversity in italo, especially as it moved west, but the era came to an end when house music took over. Yet, much like in America, the change was almost imperceptible, more an evolution than a revolution.

Jewel has a very particular, if never static, style of production. He tends to favor female singers just this side of consciousness. His drum machines are designed to sound real, to the point that I’m having trouble deciding that they actually are drum machines. Handclaps are a distinct signature. His synths are analog, his bass lines low, his guitars chicken scratch. Brass and strings sound sampled, if only because one has to doubt that he has the budget for the real thing. There is a vinyl warmth — real or imported — to his productions, even at their most icy.

Glass Candy gets the most attention with four contributions, three of which are covers. Their covers of Belle Époque’s “Miss Broadway” (reviewed here), Kraftwerk’s “Computer Love” and Dark Day’s “The Chameleon” show off singer Ida No’s wonderful range. She sounds variously jaded, full of dread or life. She also has a wonderful Yoko Ono-like shriek, which she employs almost at random. The only Glass Candy original, “Rolling Down the Hills,” is one of Jewel’s gauzier productions. It’s almost drowning in the vinyl crackles from the string and horn samples, the bass zooms around underneath and squiggling synths dart about. It’s too bad so many covers are showcased here, as Glass Candy have several stunners on vinyl-only releases that would benefit from the exposure.

Chromatics are represented by three cuts, including the 12” version of “In the City,” a shorter version of which I praised a few months ago (here). Suffice to say the new version extends an already good thing to about 8 minutes of dirge and disco splash. “Hands in the Dark,” originally performed by R.L. Crutchfield’s Dark Day, is all angles and straight lines, but there is a lushness to the precision. A repeated synth stab continues throughout, while string-like elements are woe to change except on the one beat and an almost subliminal bass line and chiming bells provide the melody for the Chromatics’ narcotic singer (Ruth) to drool over.