Biography
Often likened to Rome's answer to the Aphex Twin, Italian electronica producer Marco Passarani crafts an idiosyncratic blend of ambient, electro, and techno that favors distortion boxes alongside straightforward yet evocative three-part melodies. Releases such as "2099" and "It Will Be What It Was," issued under the Passarani 2099 moniker on his own Nature imprint, draw equal or greater inspiration from Kraftwerk and Bochum Welt, reflecting Euro and new wave touches less evident in Richard James' output. A DJ since uncovering hip-hop and electro during his early teens, Passarani launched his production work in the classic Chicago vein by layering machine beats and electronics atop minimal dance records, thereby enhancing them and aligning the results with the sounds he envisioned. Opposed to the commercial currents dominating Italy's early-'90s scene, where throwaway house and techno prevailed, Passarani joined partners Andrea Benedetti and Sandro Nasonte in launching several labels, among them Sysmo, Mystic, and the more recent Nature Recordings, all devoted to the experimental reaches of dance music's widening vocabulary. This dedication to the more eccentric corners of the genre, coupled with Passarani's continued appreciation for plainly unconventional U.K.- and Detroit-rooted acts including Aphex, Ectomorph, Drexciya, Cylob/Kinaesthesia, and Dopplereffekt, forged connections between Rome's electronica underground and outfits such as Underground Resistance, Direct Beat, Cheap, Reference, Acid Planet, Fax, Warp, and Rephlex. Passarani further co-founded the Remix distribution company in 1990, which has expanded into Italy's leading dance-music importer. Beyond the more abstract and composer-oriented material on Nature, he has also issued direct dance tracks via Alan Oldham's Generator label.
Singles
