- Wonderfully melodramatic Italo nostalgia by a master of the form (and Tiger & Woods cofounder).
- Since he started putting out records everywhere from Peacefrog to Running Back in the early '90s, Marco Passarani has reserved his birth name to explore the futuristic sounds of Detroit techno and Sheffield IDM. But his last solo album, 2019's W.O.W., moved closer to the retro nu-disco he made as one half of Tiger & Woods. Now, on his debut LP for Aus, Passarani brings together his love of both the future and the past (especially the adult contemporary experiments of the last Tiger & Woods album) across a whopping 16 tracks. The Wildlife Of The Quieter Ones is a victory lap through Italo disco and early electro, with only passing references to techno.
Passarani came to Italo disco later in life. Growing up in Rome meant that the genre passed him and his peers by, as he told Gerd Janson in a 2008 interview. "Italo disco was totally unknown in Italy," he said. "It was music for B-movies, for sexy comedies of the '70s." He makes up for lost time on the new record, whose best tracks could be slotted into those very same comedies. "Serenity Alley," for example, has a kitschy daytime soap atmosphere, with mammoth drum rolls accented by well-placed Todd Terje-style space disco bleeps.
Speaking of emotion, a sense of heartache and melancholy even in the clubbier tracks. "Dial 101," for example, has a lovely Detroit electro sadness, plotting sunset synth lines over the 808s. Passarani has released electro before, but last year's outing on Libertine Records last year was an exploration of the tougher end of the continuum. The Wildlife Of Quieter Ones offers a different approach to electro, adding a splash of color with his outsized Italo melodies—it's almost too much when that over-the-top chord sequence hits in "Neverending Scrolling."
Even when he goes back to his techno roots, it sounds cheeky. "Equation" begins with the record's first four-to-the-floor kick drum and a closed hi-hat pattern that you could imagine someone like DVS1 reaching for. Still, Passarani can't help himself as the song builds into a chord progression that feels more likely to close Joey King's next film than Berghain.
Amidst all the fun Passarani throws in a whopping five ambient interludes, including three within the first six songs. "Requiem 1" and "Gravitational Line" are about as beautiful and hopeful pieces of stargazing synth work that you'll hear anywhere, but the rest of the tracks are fairly forgettable, detracting from the flow of an otherwise exuberant album. Listening through the entirety of the record in one sitting is a bit like watching a Tarantino film released in the past decade. If you've got a couple of hours, it can be fun, but also, who has a couple of hours? The highs on the record certainly outweigh the lows, but The Wildlife of The Quieter Ones is at its best when Passarani is exploring the campy highs of the '80s.
Tracklist01. Alberquereue Arcade Retreat
02. Theme from FFOM
03. Sacramento Balls
04. Dial 101
05. Revelation
06. Gravitational Lane
07. Serenity Alley
08. Equation
09. Storm 90
10. Requiem I
11. Complex Beta
12. Moon Stone
13. Rays of Thunder
14. Red Flying Kites
15. Never Ending Scrolling
16. The 6th Day
17. Strawberry Strings