- The Italian producer returns to Nervous Horizon with five incredible, trance-influenced club cuts.
- After three years away from his Nervous Horizon home and a focus on his alter ego Anunaku, TSVI—AKA Guglielmo Barzacchini—returns to his percussion-happy alias with a more emotional outlook. Mediterraneo marks a subtle evolution in the Italian's surgical style of club music, drawing inspiration from the Mediterranean progressive movement of mid-to-late '90s Italy. In other words, Mediterraneo has a distinct trance flavour, embellishing TSVI's music with all the genre's calling cards.
His keen-edged approach to production is most searing on "Vitamina H." A sinister bassline builds a breathless urgency from the start, layered with a swarming saw-style melody and punctuated by calls of "la musica" with each new giddy surge in intensity. Wooden percussive triplets clack across the final third for an intense crescendo that calls to mind the urgent, snare-like sounds of a South American carnival.
Mediterraneo's sonic palette and rip-roaring energy takes clear direction from the Latin American sounds that have permeated clubs this past year, and comes co-signed by raptor house pioneer Dj Babatr, who joins TSVI for the less threatening but equally relentless "HHG." A thumping 139 BPM kick drum and acid-inflected synth line pen you in an intoxicating loop for a near five minutes, only halted by a hand-drum solo of epic proportions just over halfway.
Settling back at the 105 BPM mark, "Parhasar" continues the acid theme with a mix of whirring, slow climbing synths. Lead single "Progressiva" is quite the opposite, pushing and pulling the pummelling track's tension through a euphoric breakdown Gigi D'Agostino would approve of—and an evocative "Attenzione!" refrain that may have been inspired by an inescapable meme.
Ten years on from cofounding Nervous Horizon, complex, rich rhythms remain TSVI's bread and butter, but they're always evolving as he changes his music. He's jumped between the sounds of his own Hindu and Italian upbringing to dubby dream states, gorge music and, now, a fierce, sweaty injection of Latin-influenced trance. Mediterraneo is about as club-ready as TSVI gets, and legions of DJs should be grateful for this latest set of cheat codes.
Tracklist01. Progressiva
02. Vitamina H
03. HHG feat. Dj Babatr
04. Parhasar
05. Ultimo Impero