- Aug 23, 2022
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Android, produced by fellow Italians Gianluca Cavicchi and Max Ricci, was picked up and reworked by several local DJs and producers in the same year of its release, resulting in the Space Remix and Positive Remix. But it was only Gigi D’Agostino’s interpretation that ultimately managed to surpass the success of the original. At the time, D’Agostino was still one of the leading figures of Italy’s Mediterranean progressive scene, alongside artists such as Mauro Picotto and Roland Brant, well before his move towards the more commercial side of electronic music in the late 1990s, particularly with L’Amour Toujours, which brought him international recognition.
There is something almost like poetry in motion about the way Gigi’s remix unfolds. Its gentle, dreamlike melodic lines evoke the sound of violin and cello, while its sensual passages and motifs carry clear traces of Italo disco. More importantly, the remix softens the original’s instrumental character, allowing the melodic elements to take centre stage and resulting in a warmer, more fluid track. By contrast, the original could at times drift into a more mechanical pulse, particularly through the repeated chanting of the word “Android”.
In a 2015 article, the Italian web magazine Soundwall included Android in a 15-record selection intended to represent the country’s 1990s progressive scene, describing it as a record that became “immediately symbolic” and was played virtually everywhere. The article also notes that Gigi D’Agostino’s remix may have become even more widely known than the original.
