Calypso Italy Vinyl & CDs

Review: In its formative years in the first half of the 1990s, IRMA offshoot Calypso Records released some of the finest Italo-house records of the period. By the middle of the decade, though, the imprint was dipping its toe into darker and infinitely more druggy territory. DJ Nabile's 'Moonlight', featuring some chanted and spoken lead vocals byLucio Baradel, played a key role in this transformation. All these years on, it still sounds fresh. Side A boasts two of the earliest versions: the mind-mangling 'Alfa Mix', where dark and moody, Tenaglia-esque motifs ride an extra-percussive tribal house groove, and the more rolling 'Gamma Mix'. Over on the flip you'll find two previously unreleased takes - a throbbing, heavy and warped bass-propelled Alex Neri revision, and Alessio Colina's stomping and hallucinatory 'Tribe Acid Remix'.