Afro/Cosmic Music - Descriptions

Descriptions

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. —Daniel Wang, Daniele Baldelli interview in Discopia #3

In the interview, Baldelli emphasizes playing diverse selections of classical, African and Brazilian folk, and synth-pop at improper speeds, mixed with effects and drum machines:

To explain to you what I was doing… For example, I used to play Bolero by Ravel, and on top of this I would play an African song by Africa Djola, or maybe an electronic tune by Steve Reich, with which I would mix a Malinké chant from New Guinea(sic). Or, I would mix T-Connection with a song by Moebius and Rodelius, adding the hypnotic-tribal Izitso album of Cat Stevens, and then Lee Ritenour, but also Depeche Mode at 33 instead of 45, or a reggae voice by Yellowman at 45 instead of 33. I might mix 20 African songs on top of a Korg Electronic Drums (machine) rhythm pattern. I would play a Brazilian batucada and mix it with a song by Kraftwerk. I would also use synthesizer effects on the voices of Miriam Makeba, Jorge Ben, or Fela Kuti, or I would play the Oriental melodies of Ofra Haza or Sheila Chandra with the electronic sounds of the German label SKY. —Daniele Baldelli, Interview in Discopia #3

Cosmic music has been cited as a "touchstone" for contemporary "space disco" artists like Lindstrøm collaborator Prins Thomas and Andy Meecham of Chicken Lips. It has also been cited as an influence on some later Italian house songs, such as Sueño Latino.