Afro house
| Afro/Cosmic | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins |
|
| Cultural origins | 1970s, Northern Italy |
| Typical instruments | |
| Derivative forms | Space disco |
In music, the terms Afro, cosmic disco, the cosmic sound,free style, and combinations thereof (cosmic Afro,Afro-cosmicAfro-Freestyle, etc., as well as Afro-Funky) are used somewhat interchangeably to describe various forms of synthesizer-heavy and/or African-influenced dance music and methods of DJing that were originally developed and promoted by a small number of DJs in certain discothèques of Northern Italy from the late 1970s through the mid-1980s. The terms slow-motion disco and Elettronica Meccanica are also associated with the genre.
Italian DJs Beppe Loda and Daniele Baldelli both independently claim to have invented the genre and mixing style.
The Afro/Cosmic mixing style is freeform in that it allows for short hip-hop style transforms as well as long, beat-matched segues; it sometimes incorporates added percussion and effects; and it permits major speed variations to force songs into a 90–110 BPM range. Baldelli would also play 45 RPM records at 33 and vice versa. The Cosmic Sound included a very diverse range of musical styles, from electro and funk to jazz fusion and Brazilian music.Peter Shapiro described Baldelli's music as a "combination of spaced-out rock and tribal percussion." "the Cosmic Sound," One genre that was usually not part of this mix was Italo disco, which Baldelli believes was generally too mainstream and commercial. In a 2005 feature on Daniele Baldelli, one of the style's founding DJs, music journalist Daniel Wang describes Baldelli's style as “psychedelic, churning, hypnotic.”
The sound is psychedelic, churning, hypnotic — not at all frenetic or purely electronic. Metallic klangs glide over a slowed-down afro-percussion track. A train noise over a beat is mixed continuously with a funky guitar riff and then with a synthesizer composition (Jean-Michel Jarre?). Flangers and equalizer effects are applied, not like the overexcited tantrums of a modern DJ, but rather methodically and with deep feeling, changing the texture of entire passages, as if we are gently passing from a radio show through a train tunnel back to a great concert hall.
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