Automat

Presented here as an officially licensed and remastered reissue, Tempo Dischi's second release is one of electronic music's seminal albums, the 1978 Italian space disco album: Automat by Automat. A year after the release of Oxygène (1976) by Jean Michel Jarre, a milestone for electronic music, Automat was released in Italy, a timeless record that has been influential in the intervening years. Released in 1978 by EMI Italia, the album was produced by two veteran Italian songwriters and composers, Romano Musumarra and Claudio Gizzi after meeting Mario Maggi, one of the major innovators in the manufacturing of electronic instruments in Italy. Maggi invented the first programmable monophonic synthesizer ever made, the MCS70. It's sounds were the basis for the production of the whole Automat album. That synth was used only for this record and remained a prototype, leaving a halo of mystery behind this record. The album moves in the furrows of atypical space disco, with abstract classical arias alternating with more sustained rhythms, which combine electronic experiments and progressive psychedelic journeys with cinematic themes. The A side, composed by Gizzi, is an electronic disco-tinged suite divided into three parts ("The Rise," "The Advance," and "The Genius"). After a brief intro, the insistent arpeggio expands into a soundtrack theme with a sumptuous melody, which slowly fades away to make room for a progressive psychedelic journey. The B side, composed by Musumarra, is also three tracks, including "Droid," one of the most representative songs of the electronic music of the early eighties - a magical bit of interplay among a bassline, electronic drums, and a spatial disco theme with a futuristic and cinematic mood. This is a record that has influenced the music of the current time and after 40 years still sounds contemporary.