Interview: Serge Santiago - an education in Italo

Interview: Serge Santiago - an education in Italo

10 September, 2008 | 3.03AM

• Written by: Ben Raven
• Filed under: Music News: arcobalena, italo disco, re-edit, serge santiago

The We Love resident explains his love for experimental Italo disco.

Serge Santiago couldn’t care less about following trends.

When he started DJing in 1999 it wasn’t to become a superstar DJ hooked into the dance music craze sweeping the UK, it was so he could get a job that didn’t involve working in a shop.

When minimal techno mark II swept Europe in the 2000s, Serge stuck to his guns taking influence from the music that’s inspired him most, Italo disco.

From London to Berlin, buoyed on by the psychadelia of cosmic disco and taste making clubs like London Dalston’s Disco Bloodbath disco is back and hipper than ever.

Serge is reaping the rewards with a highly coveted residency at We Love at Space in Ibiza (along with Riton he mixed last year’s ‘We Love’ mix CD and recently contributed an Italo disco-meets-current-house/techno mix to Ibiza Voice’s podcast series).

Serge began playing disco in the pubs of his native Brighton after making his first steps into production with debut record ‘Push It.’

A resident for Brighton’s Stompa Phunk club night, he began a remix partnership called Radio Slave with Matt Edwards.

The duo reworked big names like Kylie, The White Stripes and Justin Timberlake but split in 2005.

While Matt retained the name, Serge continued producing under his own name releasing the excellent ‘Atta D’Amore’ on his own label Arcobaleno (meaning ‘rainbow’ in Italian).

A limited edition series of his own re-edits of Italo disco classics on coloured vinyl followed and in 2008 he’s continued the series re-editing classics like Thai Break’s 1986 track ‘Flowers in the Rain’ or Lama’s ‘Love Is On The Rocks’ for release on Arcobalena later this month.

Give us a one minute guide to Italo house.

Italo is basically what bridges the gap between late disco and early house.

A lot of the guys writing it were Italian but also from all over Europe and even Canada.

The music is made up like a film score with mass heavy chord changes that take you on a journey as a film would.

It was also helped along by the first drum machines to hit the planet blended with the early Moog and Korg synthesizers.

How did you discover Italo disco?

I was sitting in the car coming back from a meeting about ‘Radio Slave’ with Matt Edwards about five years ago and he stuck on a CD.

I’d been into ‘underground’ disco for ages but there were some tracks on the CD that blew me away: Doctors Cat ‘Feel the Drive’ etc.

From that point on I started to search for more like it.

I didn’t even know I was editing Italo at this point; it must’ve affected me so much because it’s all I seem to touch now.

What’s the first Italo record you bought?

Kano ‘It’s War.’

It was a random boot market buy. Lucky me!

How do you go about collecting Italo disco?

You need to research by talking to people, bang into the scene and get them to spill their track information or get online and read up on it.

Find out how it first started and that the name Italo wasn’t the first name used to describe it.

Once you start learning about this you’ll know what to look for.

Who’s your favourite Italo disco producer?

Gino Soccio is for the best there is.

He is real Italo disco.

He made stuff which people just can’t understand. He did that back in 1979.

He’s an utter inspiration to music in general, he’s a guy that sounded like he got into solo production by mistake too, helping others to produce (like an engineer) and just having better ideas than them.

An video for Gino Soccio’s 1982 disco single ‘Try It Out’

How do you go about making your Italo disco edits?

The only reason I do these edits is for my DJ sets so you hear no one else playing them.

They’re done in a very basic way using Ableton Live to lock the time of the record in and FL Studio to blend it to my style of production.

I hate adding frills and spills and destroying the original but you have to take some things out because the modern ear just can’t handle the way it was first made.

Tell us your top five Italo disco records of all time.

Gino Soccio ‘Remember’
One solid groove throughout the whole record with an amazing amount of feeling and mood.

Kano ‘It’s War’
Pure energy all the way without being at all overbearing.

My Mine ‘Hypnotic Tango’
Slick bubbly record, all I get is smiles when I play this.

Patrick Cowley ‘Mind Warp’
Patrick Cowley is the genius behind the Donna Summer ‘I Feel Love’ extended mix and he gives you more of the same of this brilliant track.

Steel Mind ‘Bad Passion’
Slow grinder that has the best dark lyric in it I’ve ever heard!

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• Check out Serge Santiago on Beatport