Sweet Sixteen

Mastered by Vessel, pressed onto white vinyl and packaged into clear PVC sleeves.

We follow Alis' 'Things Next Door' tape with an LP from Vaghe Stelle (pronounced 'vag-he stel-lay'), an Italian artist based in Turin, real name Daniele Mana. Previous works have appeared on the likes of Modeselektor's Monkeytown label, the breakthrough Gang of Ducks imprint, and Aisha Devi's Danse Noire amongst others. Artists who have reworked his tracks include Peaking Lights, Lukid, Nguzunguzu, BNJMN, Best Available Technology and Samoyed (with the latter remix recently appearing on Bloc Party's DJ Kicks collection for K7!). He has also recently been involved in a project organized by the British Council and headed-up by Hyperdub boss Kode9 to create 'A Great Symphony for Torino'. Alongside his solo work, Daniele also forms part of the One Circle collaborative project alongside Editions Mego's Lorenzo Senni and A:RA, with a recent release on the UK label Left_Blank.

'Sweet Sixteen' is, as the artist claims, an attempt to have a conversation with the listener on the subjects of love and despair. Despite this, the perhaps unambiguous title is intended partially as a joke, used by the artist to poke fun at himself for feeling as though he still lives the life of a real teenager...; A feeling I am sure we are all familiar with. Though heavily influenced by krautrock and Italian psychedelia, Daniele's production and composition is intended to be as loose as possible in its approach. Utilizing vocal samples to craft bass and lead sounds, coupled with repeated use of Poly-800 and Juno 106 synthesizers, the record often drifts from summoning the bleary-eyed glacial spasms of Wiley's devil mixes and an oddly Final Fantasy-esque emotiveness combining with the smudged electronic aesthetic that has come to define our label over the past year or so.