Editing music has always been part of my work, ever since I started. Radio making (done right) implies a lot of editing and thus understanding musical structures. Cutting 1/4 inch tape was fun and instructional but when digital came along, the game was changed forever. Here’s the tracklist of my mixtape that features a selection of my edits (often with a side of delays).
Billy Cobham – Red Baron (Empty bars edit)
This short edit is part of a series called Empty Bars. Sometimes there are extra bars in a track, apparently put there just to enjoy the groove a bit longer. So I made a small digital EP (streaming only) with a few tracks edited so that the song was no longer there – just the groove.
Bill Withers – Try to find love (Kiddo edit)
As for the edit above, this is also a subtractive one, in this case to remove an annoying chorus (to my ears), but to keep the miraculous, immaculate beat of the verse and extend the otherwordly final ad lib. I made this version in the late 90s using a very clunky and unmusical piece of software called Peak. The Latin Rascals type edits (some breaks are done with repeats) are real old school. Please forgive the insisted use of the reverse effect: this was an early attempt at a new technology (for me), after many years of analog tape editing.
Senzafiato – Molto dopo mezzanotte (edit)
This is one of my favorite italian tunes of the 90s. Unfortunately it got lost as the last track of an EP which wasn’t well promoted. But it’s a killer, both in its original form and in my edit: I simply restructured it to make it a bit more dancefloor friendly, extending the chorus and adding two delays. You should absolutely check out (and possibly buy) the original track.
Sade – Paradise (edit)
This was one of the few mainstream songs I liked in the 1980s, but the structure was not too interesting to me, so I rebuilt it with delays.
Bob Sinclar & Raffaella Carrà – Far l’Amore (Ricomincia edit)
I find both the 70s original and the recent house remix absolutely atrocious. Yet, listening to the Sinclar version (in the film The Great Beauty) I noticed something. So I got the sound file, slowed it down significantly and discovered this funny, cartoonish groove hidden inside, quite Balearic (whatever that means) and not even remotely annoying as the original. For extra pleasure I added some delays, a bassline, and removed any trace of the song itself.
Enzo Avitabile – Mamma che caos (Senza caos edit)
Italian funk at its best, produced by Mauro Malavasi in the late 80s. The LP version was okish, with too many choruses. But the extended was fantastic: instead or redoing the whole track, they framed the single version in a longer one, adding very funky intro and outro. So I cut out the song and extended these parts.
Queens of the Stone Age (feat. Tom Sherman) – God is in the Radio (Radio Radio edit)
This is an edit created for a radio program I made in 2016, Radio Radio (produced and broadcast by ORF Kunstradio). The concept of the show was to make a different type of Music Radio, in this case with music about Radio itself. I combined this magnificent tune with a visionary and disturbed reading by my friend Tom Sherman, who can say things few people can.