The debut album by the prodigious Florentine Michele Balduzzi, Phonat, is a collection of 12 genre-spanning tracks boasts 80s-styled vocals, signature delayed intros, and a unique mix of dance and electronic music with rock-inspired guitar riffs. With the album being released at the end of September, the Christmas club fame is practically guaranteed.

Continental European musicians somehow tend to be more universal and almost more innovative. Learn to Recycle should be the name and the homage to this ability to blend all the impossible trends together into something rather tasteful , to break the ground, and to overwhelm with the sheer passion for music.

Read more

phonat-album-packshotPhonat is a lanky Italian DJ who’s quit the rennaisance splendour of Firenze and decamped to grimy old London Town. The smog must suit his constitution as he’s come up with a belter of an album which cuts out the middle man and sees him both create and remix his own tunes. The end result may be a digital album but it is one which, nevertheless, is oozing with his schizophrenic personality. He’s not here to make you think though – this album is as commercial as they come, recalling the nu-rave chart hits of the early 90’s.

Check out Set Me Free which could set light to any dancefloor; a potential chart topper which could have been released any time between 1991 and 2009. It takes the Hagar era Van Halen model to its ultimate conclusion and combines soft rock vocals and epic synths with an infectious dance groove. There’s no Eddie Van Halen solos but Phonat isn’t averse to dropping in some of his own nifty guitar lines here and there throughout the album– it just takes a while to tune your ear into them as they are so well disguised in the mix. Learn To Recycle is similarly epic and, whilst it may have an environmental point to make it also has potential to generate some dancefloor mayhem.
Read more