|
Alexander
Robotnick aka
Maurizio Dami is an Italian music producer. He makes his debut on the
Italian music scene as the founding-member of Avida, a "dance -cabaret band" featuring Daniele Trambusti and Stefano Fuochi and releasing a 7''track "La bustina" published by Materiali Sonori in
1981.
In 1983 he then attains international popularity under the pseudonym "Alexander Robotnick" and his track "Problèmes
d'amour", published first by the Italian label Materiali Sonori and then by Sire-Wea , becomes a "cult track" of dance music.
In 1984 he joins "Giovanotti Mondani Meccanici" a multimedia -oriented group and composes sound-tracks for theatre works, videos and video-installations.
Still in the 80s he gains a reputation as the creator of ambient music for special events and fashion exhibitions (Pitti Immagine, Prato Expo, Capucci, Missoni) .
He also composes sound-tracks for films and theatre works by Italian directors such as Alessandro Benvenuti, Antonio Climati, Marco Mattolini, Marco Risi.
In 1987 he turns his interest to World Music, meeting African, Kurdish and Indian musicians who live in Italy and making music with them.
"Data from Africa", the band he puts up with Niba Boniface (Camerun) , stages numerous concerts until
1990.
In 1993 he meets an Indian flute player, living in Italy: Boliwar
Miranda. With him and Ettore Bonafé (tablas) he founds the band "Music for Meditation" later renamed
"Masala" and published by Materiali Sonori.
In 1994 he starts a collaboration with the Indian-Italian band "Govinda" leading to the production of two tracks "Devotion" and "Transcendental Ecstasy" for Govinda's first album "Selling India by the pound".
In Summer 1995 he conceives and organises the I Ambient Music Festival in Florence at Anfiteatro delle Cascine.
In 1996 with Nazar Abdulla and Rashmi Bhatt he creates "The Third Planet" , a multi-ethnic band that blends traditional music from Kurdistan, Algeria and India with modern sounds.
From 1997 to 2001 Maurizio Dami develops several projects of innovative World Music.
With "The Third Planet" he produces 2 albums "Kurdistani" and "The Third Planet" published by CNI (Italy) and licenced by Blue Flame (Germany). The band gives numerous concerts in Italy whilst one of its tracks features in "Nirvana Lounge".
In 1997 his collaboration with Lapo Lombardi and Ranieri Cerelli leads to the "Alkemya" project, releasing an album with CNI.
With the band "Masala" he produces 2 albums (1998-2000) published by Materiali Sonori, the Italian label the artist has been long associated with.
In 2000 he establishes a label of his own, Hot Elephant
Music, to give
expression to the different experiences with music developed sofar in
his artistic career. In the same period, in collaboration with his
friend Ludus Pinsky (Lapo Lombardi) he explores new sounds and
technologies, resulting in the production of Underwater Cafè. He also
produces E.A.S.Y. vol1 (Elephants Are Sometimes Young).
In 2002 he turns back to the "Electro" style that so strongly
and succesfully characterized his musical début and, on that wake,
produces "Oh no...Robotnick" in collaboration with Max Durante
and Teomad. The album,despite its somewhat dark humor, so typical of
Robotnick's early tracks, is not enough disco-dance and
fashion-conscious and therefore receives mixed reviews.
With Max Durante he gives a live concert at DF03 in Bologna
(Link), which is enthusiastic by received.
In 2002 he releases "Melt in Time", the third album by The
Third Planet in collaboration with Nazar, Paolo Casu, Arup Kanti Das,
Smail Kouider, the present elements of The Third Planet.
In April 2003 he can finally get hold of a professional lap-top and sets
of to undertake DJing, an activity he had never considered before
because Robotnick never liked vynil (but he does like audiocassettes a
lot). It's Fabrice Guarnascione (Grossomodo Productions) who offers
him
the opportunity to make his début as a DJ at Spartacus Club in
Aix-En-Provence with Kiko and The Hacker. The night is a success that
encourages him to do more DJing. As of June 2003 Robotnick has been
djing in a number of clubs around Europe (see Robotnick
DJ's page).
In Summer 2003 he works with Kiko and The Hacker on a new track
"Viens Chez Moi" that will feature in the EP "Les Grands
Voyages de l'Amour" (Hot Banana). Robotnick is still strongly
fascinated by the old analogic synts and TB303 he works with in Kiko's
studio and he soon realises the present impossibility of reproducing,
with plug-in software instruments, the typical sound of the 80s that
made of him a cult for some.
In October 2003 he publishes "Rare Robotnick's" a collection
of his vintage tracks. The album is distributed by Audioglobe.
In Autumn 2003
he started his collaboration with Oliver
Way and his booking agency Electronic
PM.
In the same period he puts together a mixed compilation to be released
by Yellow Productions : "The Disco Tech of...Alexander
Robotnick" offers a taste of Robotnick's lap-top DJing style,
despite the limits due to the licensing mechanism.
In February 2004 he travels to India, a country he's very fond of and
keeps going back to since the early 80s; this time also to define the
licensing deal of some of Hot Elephant Music's productions with an
important Indian label (Times Music).
Maurizio Dami's future is very much focused on A.Robotnick's project :
he will soon start a new collaboration with Kiko for Hot Banana. But he
does'nt want to drop the World-Music projects he dedicated so much
energy to in the 90s.
In February 2005,
with Ludus Pinsky
(Lapo Lombardi) released Italcimenti
- Under Construction, a kind of joke about Italo-Disco, a dance style from the early 80s that recently reached the status of music cult in a number of countries of the Nord-Europe.
In October 2005 starts
his collaboration with Creme Organization (NL). They release Krypta
1982 (Rare Robotnick's 2) a couple of
12" including a remix by Bangkok Impact (Clone distribution).
Since 1984 Maurizio Dami has been living exclusively on his work as
musician and more recently as DJ too. This doesn't make him a wealthy
man but is no reason to make him change his original choice.
In September 2006 he opens an account on myspace.com, as everybody
does, essentially not to be cloned there...;)
In May 2007 he releases a CD "My La(te)st Album" (Hot Elephant
Music - distr. Audioglobe).
Robotnick is getting into his 5th year of DJing. His DJ-Set now covers
different styles of dance music. Beside Italo-Disco and New
Wave from the 80s, he plays the most interesting tracks of
contemporary electro-house and minimal-techno.
Robotnick's next projects are:
In March 2008
he releases "I'm getting lost in my brain", a compilation of remixes taken
by Detroit Grand Pubahs, Kompute, Microthol,
Robosonic, Lore J, Italcimenti, Alexander Robotnick
from his latest album.
Recently Alexander Robotnick started working on home-made videoclips,
available on Youtube and Digichannel.
New projects include tracks and video-clips by A.R., Ludus Pinsky VS
Alexander Robotnick, Italcimenti.
In April 2009
This
is Music LTD released "Obsession For The Disco Freaks", a
12" including remixes by David Carretta, Heavy Foot, Rory Philips.
More remixes of that same track have been recently released.
Last February Alexander Robotnick and Ludus Pinsky put together their
personal analog synths to organise and perform an Analog Session. The
idea was to recreate the purely analog sound of the 70s and early 80s which
the two artists consider to be the true "electronic sound". The DVD+CD
has been released by This Is Music LTD in
June 2010. The Aalog Session
Recently a number of remixes by Robotnick were released, among which:
"Stuck on Repeat" by Little Boots, "Dance Machine"
by David Carretta. Go to the Robotnick's player to download a
49' mix of Robotnick remixes.
A few years ago, A. R. started producing videoclips. They are neither promotional clips – the glossy, costly kind of ones we’re used to watch on TV – nor the home-made VJ style clips made of image loops . Robotnick’s clips are original material shot by the author himself. They rather tend to be funny self-caricatures, their only purpose being to snatch a smile from their viewers, something quite unusual today , especially in the music scene.
“Can I have an ashtray” was the first to appear in 2007 , opening A.R.’s page on YouTube : www.youtube.com/mauriziodami.
|
Who is Alexander Robotnick?
Alexander Robotnick is the nickname that Maurizio Dami adopted in the early 80s when he started producing electronic
music. AR means Alexander the worker in Russian.
In 1983 “Problèmes d’Amour”, a track he composed for Materiali Sonori/Fuzz Dance, an
Italian Independent label, was an international hit and with time became a true “cult” of
electronic dance music.
In the late 80s and 90s MD got involved with different music genres and gave up the
nickname that had made him popular.
Click here for AR’s biography.
In 2002 Maurizio Dami , once again AR, became a DJ , beside continuing to produce music.
Since 2003 AR has been djing and performing live in numerous clubs around the world
playing both his old school tracks as well as the best of current electro-disco and
electro-house.
In 2002 HEM, Robotnick’s label , released “Oh no…Robotnick!” . Since then Robotnick has
been producing electronic music for several labels.
Click here for his (almost) complete discography.
Click here for AR’s latest digital releases.
Which are the other projects MD got involved with?
From 1981 to 1982 he was a member of the band “AVIDA”.
From 1994 to 2000 he collaborated with the multimedia group “Giovanotti Mondani Meccanici”.
In 1994 he founded the band “Masala” which produced 2 cds.
From 1995 to 2003 he worked with “The Third
Planet”, a multiethnic band that produced 3 CDs.
In the late 90s he developed several projects with Lapo Lombardi – aka Ludus Pinsky :
“Alkemya” and “C2” ( with the collaboration of Ranieri Cerelli), then “Ludus Pinsky &
Alexander Robotnick” (Underwater café”) and Italcimenti (“Under construction”).
Where can I find
Maurizio Dami /AR’s (almost) complete discography?
The term “discography” is getting obsolete, I believe. I recently started producing some
tracks only digitally. The discography you ‘ll find clicking on the link below, does
not contain the numerous compilations including Robotnick’s tracks.
Click here for his (almost) complete
discography.
Which are AR’s latest productions?
I’ve recently started to produce a “home-made” video-clip for each new track I release.
“Can I have an ashtray?” was the first.
If you wish to know about my latest productions, the easiest thing to do is go to my
personal video-box ( provided by YouTube).
Click here to go to my video-box
Where can I buy AR’s CD/records?
You certainly know better….
At DiscoGS
you can get all the CDs produced by
Hot Elephant Music..
At Materiali Sonori.it you can get some early Robotnick’s tracks including a recent CD
featuring (almost ) all the versions I ever made of Problèmes d’Amour.
CLONE recently released Problèmes d’Amour on vynil; at Clone on-line shop you can find many
of my tracks.
Mind that most of my tracks were not released in massive quantities …. so you may need
some luck to get hold of them…..
Where can I buy AR’s digital tracks?
Click here to go to the page where you can choose your favourite on-line shop. The links
provided will directly open the page of Robotnick’s digital tracks on sale there.
Where can I download AR’s digital tracks for free ?
As I recently found out, you can actually download all of my works for free using peer-to-peer systems , such as Soulseek.
It’s not very encouraging but that’s the reality.I never considered illegal downloading unbearably outrageous ….we’ve all nicked some jam
sometime….
But let me say that downloading music legally has some real advantages: you can be sure
that what you downloaded is original and top quality , you don’t waste time doswnloading
fakes and you encourage artists to go on.
Where can I download AR’s video-clips from?
YouTube doesn’t allow you to download video-clips. But there are many freeware programs to
get round the obstacle.
Indeed the easy and widespread use of such programs enabled some to publish my tracks as
video-clips showing only the cover of the record and allowing the music download for free.
My video clips are also hosted by Digichannel where you can download them in wmf. If you
subscribe, you can also download them as DVD. Next year I’m going to publish a DVD
containing 12 video-clips.
Click here to go to my video-box
Click here to go to AR’s video-clips
page on youtube.
What is
Hot Elephant Music?
Hot Elephant
Music is Maurizio Dami’s label under which he’s been publishing his work since 2002.
Hot Elephant Music website – which isn’t really updated to the latest minute - gives you
an overview of the CDs released sofar and where to get them.
Where and when is AR going to be Djing?
On my DJ-Set page you’ll find my next gigs as well as those I’ve made since June 2003.
Click here to go to Robotnick’s DJ-Set.
I’m a promoter, what’s the contact for AR’s booking?
AR’s booking is managed by Blue
Collar Entertainment,.
You can also leave a message with your e-mail address on my form
or contact me on MySpace,
I’ll put you through to the person in charge
Which are AR’s next projects?
I tend to produce ahead of planning…..
When I get an idea which I like , it becomes a project rightaway …..but then it’s no longer
a project to me but something done and gone…..
So if you wnat to know about my “projects” go to on-line shops every now and then and
digit Alexander Robotnick.
I want to get the license for a track by Robotnick, whom should I contact?
You can contact me. If I hold its rights I’ll license it myself; if not I’ll give you the
contact.
Click here to leave a message and your e-mail address on my form. I’ll reply ASAP.Or contact me on
MySpace if you are a membe
I’m a video-maker and I wish to play AR’s music on a video-clip, what should I do?
You can contact me. If I hold its rights I’ll give you the authorisation myself; if not
I’ll give you the contact.
Click here to leave a message and your e-mail address on my form. I’ll reply ASAP.
Or contact me on MySpace
if you are a member.
I’m a journalist, where can I download the press-release and high-resolution pics from?
Click here for AR’s biography
Click here for high resolution pics.
I’m a young producer, can AR do anything for me?
Demos are always welcome! Better than links to tracks..There’s always time to listen to a
CD, maybe while driving..Honestly , I’m very bad at feedback, no time to do it , besides
I’m not fluent in English.
But I’m a DJ too after all, so if I really like something, I’m going to play it, especially
if it’s not too compressed , like a wall.
You can leave a message and your e-mail address on my form or contact me on
MySpace if you
are a member . I’ll give you my home address
|