By all accounts, growing up in the Hague during the ‘80s was not an enjoyable experience.
However, if you managed to avoid the sleazy squats and drug-fuelled gang wars that plagued Holland’s administrative capital during this period, musical salvation could be found on the city’s airwaves in the shape of pirate broadcaster, Radio Stad Den Haag (Radio City The Hague).
It was the only outlet for Italo Disco in the city at the time, an electronic, tripped-out take on the disco sound pioneered in New York.
Coming mainly from Rimini and its surroundings – hence the ‘Italo’ tag – this warm, cheesy, hypnotic style of dance music seduced electro DJ I-F and producer Alden Tyrell, aka Martijn Hoogendijk.
“I was into Italo from an early age: it was very popular in the ‘80s in The Hague – don’t ask me why, maybe for its cheesiness!" Martijn explains. “It was played constantly on Radio Stad Den Haag and that’s how we got to know about it. The station got shut down in 1987, but they are broadcasting its old programmes online and they include the old ad breaks for VHS videos and products in guilders!”
Like I-F, whose ‘Space Invaders Are Smoking Grass’ revitalised interest in electro and Italo in the mid-90s, Martijn, who takes his stage name from a character in the sci-fi film Bladerunner, started to produce club tracks that were inspired by the music he heard on the station.
Tyrell’s 1999 debut record, ‘Love Explosion’, combined the epic, soaring melodies of Italo with a contemporary, pumping DJ-friendly groove and, although he has been slow to release material – he has put out just six EPs in the past seven years – each release has been supported by Dave Clarke, Dr Lektroluv and I-F. Does it bother him that some people might see him as an ‘80s copyist and nothing else?
“No, not really, because a track like ‘Disco Lunar Module’ also borrows from techno and electro,” he proffers. “Sure, my music is inspired by Italo, but some people call it high-energy because it is pumping. You want to make music you like, but you also want people to dance and that’s why my records are so clubby. My favourite artists of all time are Bobby O and Patrick Cowley: their stuff was energetic and had a big cheese factor.”
There’s no shortage of catchy hooks and hypnotic grooves on Tyrell’s retrospective collection, Times Like These. From the tear jerking melodies of ‘Rendezvous At Rimini’ to the building electronic peaks of ‘Phaze Me’, Tyrell’s sound stands out amid an abundance of lame ‘80s pastiches.
“The whole ‘80s revival was inevitable, but I look at these people wearing silly glasses and moustaches and it doesn’t interest me,” Martijn says. “Even Madonna is doing electronic disco, but what surprises me is that it’s still so popular. I thought that the hype would be over by now. Italo is music that comes straight from the heart, and that’s the reason why a classic like ‘Cybernetic Love’ has survived over the years. I’m not sure that my work will have the same lasting effect, let’s wait 20 years and see.”
However, it looks like Times Like These may be Tyrell’s parting shot to the world of dancefloor electro. He claims that he has suffered an “Italo overload” and plans to make soundtracks and collaborate with Dexter, another artist on Clone. He is also going to cut down on playing live, a decision that anyone who witnessed his live sets at Dublin’s Electric City club will regret. But Martijn says that he needs the time to get back in the studio.
“I play live every weekend, so I will quit for a while so I can start making music again,” he says, adding that things don’t always go according to plan at some of his gigs.
“I played recently in Belgrade and the promoter didn’t pay me. Don’t get me wrong. I love playing in Serbia, the people are great because they have been through so much. Another time I played there, there was a huge fight in the club and there were people running about bleeding and Nazi-style security guys screaming into my face!”