Around the World (The Milanese Label Archive etc)

This is something the folks at The Economist might not understand about globalisation. Enrico Crivellaro lives in Verona, where he works in the marketing department of his father’s company during the daytime. In Milan he operates his labels Neroli and Archive – the latter of which was set up three years ago in London, where most of his artists live, whose records are big in Japan and Northern Europe.Archive has so far released 14 singles and EPs plus two longplayers, which share the common feature of being both eclectic and based on breakbeats. Archive’s recent release Up+Down, produced by 22-year-old Domu of Bedford, slows down and transforms the dark, nasty madness of late drum&bass into the friendly celebration of funky breaks and colourful sounds with soulful vocals on top.

It perfectly matches the much acclaimed New Sector Movements album by IG Culture, who most determinedly revived the tradition of combining twisted breaks with vocals already being championed by the Shut Up and Dance collective in the early ’90s. Archive is part of a ‘family of labels’, as Enrico calls it, which includes 2000 Black, Visions, Friends and others. Together they formed the artist-owned Co-op label, which will release its second compilation soon.

Co-op organises a bi-weekly club night in London’s Velvet Rooms, Enrico’s Archive nights in Milan include top producers from Detroit like Carl Craig and Theo Parrish, who come to play their records in a centro sociale called Pergola. A ‘rough environment with a true spirit’, as Enrico puts it. Since the early eighties these social centres have been the spaces where political work is mixed with underground music – then super-fast hardcore punk. Grassroots globalisation is not just about interconnecting NGOs, it also happens to be a small-scale business model for the exchange of cultural wares. Ideas flow, sounds and rhythms migrate, microstructures proliferate, the market is open.

Ulrich Gutmair <ulrich.gutmair AT netzeitung.de> is an editor for Netzeitung [http://www.netzeitung.de] and member of web-audio and social project Convex TV.

Neroli (including a link to Archive): [http://www.neroli.it]Goya Music distribute the Co-op label: [http://goyamusic.com]