alexander robotnick
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Despite my art-name , Alexander Robotnick, I am a human with a birthdate (1950) and a birth town (Florence, Italy). If you are still interested , read on and discover what I became and developed along my music career.
Still young I fell under the spell of music and wandered along its avenues until I put together something that I called “Avida– a dance cabaret band” and was composed by myself, Daniele Trambusti and Stefano Fuochi; its first 7’ track “La Bustina” was produced by Materiali Sonori, its LP “Il Grillo e la Formica” by Crème Organization.
But it was under my art-name Alexander Robotnick that in 1983 I hogged the limelight of the international music scene thanks to “Problèmes d’Amour” published first by Materiali Sonori and soon after by Sire-Wea. Materiali Sonori went on publishing Robotnick’s first LP “Ce n’est Q’un début” as well.
In 1984 I ventured into the video and installation world , joining “Giovanotti Mondani Meccanici” , a multi-media oriented group, whose works ranged from sound-tracks for theatre works, videos and video-installations. All of GMM’s music output “LOVE SUPREME” “GMM”,
“Music For Installations” and “GMM Suite” has been digitally re-mastered and released by Hot Elephant Music, the independent label I created in 2000.
My exploration into ambient music led me to compose music for special events and fashion exhibitions (Pitti Immagine, Prato Expo,Capucci, Missoni) . And on and on until I composed sound-tracks for films and theatre-works by Alessandro Benvenuti, Antonio Climati, Marco Risi and Marco Mattolini.
As I am a curious and explorative kind of being, in 1988 I expanded my horizons towards World Music and serendipitous encounters with talented musicians from all corners of the world resulted into the following projects : “Data from Africa” (1987, starring Niba Boniface from Cameron); “Masala” (1993, featuring Boliwar Miranda , an Indian flute-player , and Ettore Bonafé at tablas). All their tracks were published by Materiali Sonori, check them out on their catalogue, if you wish.
Sharing the same love for India, I collaborated with “Govinda” an Italo-Indian band and produced “ Devotion ” and “ Transcendental Ecstasy ” both for Govinda’s first album “ Selling India by the pound”.
After a début on the festival scene organizing the first Ambient Music Festival in Florence in 1995 , I continued my journey into world music and created “The Third Planet” in 1996, something you might like to call a ”fusion” but I prefer “multi-etnic band” drawing on Kurdistan, Algerian and Indian music with the contemporary feel of electronic keyboards. This music melting-pot put out 2 albums “Kurdistani” and “The Third Planet”published by CNI (Italy) and licensed by Blue Flame (Germany). We appeared on stage and one of our tracks was selected for “Nirvana Lounge”. In 2002 “Melt in Time” , the third and last album by “The Third Planet” in its new formation (Nazar, Paolo Casu, Arup Kanti Das, Smail Kouider) was published by Hot Elephant Music which has now made available its digitally re-masterization.
From 1997 till 2003 I ‘ve been drifting from world-music to electronics and back . These are the relevant projects from that time:
A band named “ Masala ” that produced 2 albums (1998-2000) “ Music For Meditation ” and “ Lucid Dreams “published by Materiali Sonori.
“Underwater Café” with my faithful music-mate Ludus Pinsky.
“ Oh no…Robotnick ” in collaboration with Max Durante and Matteo Logi that led me back to electronics for good , although the album was not extremely successful as it lacked in disco-dance and fashion trendy elements despite its typical Robotnick’s style dark humour. But the live concert I gave with Max Durante at DF03 in Bologna (Link) was enthusiastically received.
It was in April 2003 that I finally got hold of a professional lap-top and set out to be a DJ, although I’d never thought of it before as I had always disliked vinyl digging audiocassettes much, much more. Thanks to Fabrice Guarnascioni (Grossomodo Productions) my début at the DJ console happened in June 2003 at Spartacus Club in Aix-En-Provence with Kiko and The Hacker and was so successful that I was encouraged to go on djing as I’ve been doing sofar playing at clubs and festivals all over the world.
I also collaborated with Kiko and The Hacker on the EP “Les Grands Voyages de l’Amour” ( Hot Banana).
As I was still fascinated by old analog synths and TB303 and the typical 80s sound that was at the origins of my success and is impossible to reproduce with plug-in software intruments, I turned to my “archives” and in October 2003 published “Rare Robotnick’s” a collection of my vintage tracks.
In October 2003 I started collaborating with “EPM” by Oliver Way and shortly after I defined my lap-top DJing style in a mixed compilation named : “ The Disco Tech of…Alexander Robotnick ” and published by Yellow Productions. .
In 2005 in an ironic mood , with my friend Ludus Pinsky , I published “Italcimenti –Under Construction” a sort of parody of Italo-disco and the cult reputation it has got in some countries.
From that time on my activity as a DJ has become my primary one taking me to play at many clubs in the world such as:
Ministry of Sound, Fabric and Plastic People in London,Coral Room and Love in NYC, Razmataz, Olympia and Be Cool in Barcelona, Sky Bar and Smart Bar in Chicago, Berghain in Berlin, Paradiso in Amsterdam, Rex in Paris…. just to mention a few.
And to perform at numerous international festivals such as :
Movement Festival (Detroit), Exit Festival (Serbia), Insonnia (Tromzo), Geek Picnick Festival (Moscow), Dimension Festival (Croatia), Altavoz (Medellin) Reverso (Milan) Lente Kabinet (Amsterdam) Glitch Festival (Malta) Biennale Musica (Venice), Electro-Mechanica (St. Petersbourg),Dekmantel 2019 (Amsterdam)… just to mention a few.
But I never gave up producing music , developing projects and having collaborations as you can read below, if you are still with me:
Krypta 1982 (Rare Robotnick’s 2) released by Creme Organization (NL) including a remix by Bangkok Impact (Clone distribution). October 2005
“My La(te)st Album” released by Hot Elephant Music. May 2007
I’m getting lost in my brain, a compilation of tracks from my latest album remixed by Detroit Grand Pubahs, Kompute, Microthol, Robosonic, Lore J, Italcimenti and myself. March 2008.
“Obsession For The Disco Freaks“, a 12” including remixes by David Carretta, Heavy Foot, Rory Philips. April2009. New remixes of that same track have been recently released.
Robotnick’s Archives, 8 EPs digitally released and including previously unpublished tracks from a variety of supports: tapes, floppy disks, DAT tapes, CD-roms, hard-disks.
“Music for an imaginary Club” digitally released by Hot Elephant Music (2015)
Remixes of tracks by Detroit Grand Pubahs, Giorgio Moroder, Robosonic, Kompute, Little Boots, David Carretta, Planet Funk and many others.
Several works in collaboration with Bottin (2016-2019)
Furthermore, animated by the desire of re-creating that pure analog sound so typical of the 70s and early 80s, considered by many artists as the genuine electronic sound, in 2009 Ludus Pinsky and I put together “The Analog Session” which you can get to know at its official website: the-analog-session.it
To further expand my horizons , in 2008 I started producing my own video-clips: quite different from the glossy ones we are used to watch , they are genuine artist’s self-portraits in a caricatural style meant to inject some humour into the not so funny atmosphere of contemporary music. In 2007 with “Can I have an ashtray? “ I opened my page on YouTube which has now reached 4,8M views million views with its variety of unusual, weird and funny video-clips: https://www.youtube.com/mauriziodami
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My alter-ego bearing a more human name , Maurizio Dami, has recently opened a page on YouTube that will take you on a totally different trip: “India through my eyes”