In the world of cosmic disco, Daniele Baldelli needs no introduction. The “founding father” was born in the small town of Catotolica, Northern Italy in 1952. Do the maths and you’ll work out that he is now the ripe old age of 65. This man’s a serious veteran.
It is important to bear in mind the current state of musical entertainment before the 1970’s to truly recognise and appreciate the pioneer that Baldelli was. The disco didn’t exist, and live music reigned the dancehalls. Gradually people started to dance to records as an alternative, or to provide a musical break for the bands. This is when the term disco-jockey was coined, simply putting one record on after another. Danielle made his DJ debut in 1969 at the age of 17 in is hometown club ‘Tana Club Discoteque’ after being scouted by the owner, who offered him the job of “putting on records.” At this time the technique was to turn up the volume of one 45 as you brought down the volume of the other. Naturally mixing wasn’t practiced as the technology simply didn’t exist to facilitate it.
Baldelli grew impatient with the lack of technological advancements and took matters into his own hands. Since neither mixers nor pre-listening devices existed, he invented new ways to enable him to give his music a degree of flow. One technique he used to be able to tell when the track started was to listen to the noise that the needle made as it struck the first grain on the record. He would then mark it with tape, acting as a reference point.
In 1970 he moved to ‘Tabu Club’ in Cattolica. The music he played could be divided into two brackets: white music, mainly from Europe, and black music mainly from America. DJs at the time were limited to their local towns’ record store. However, Baldelli used to catch the train to Legano, or even Paris, where he would be able to find imported records, making his repertoire stand out from the rest.
After 4 years of DJ-ing ‘Baia Degli Angeli’ opened, which marked the historical beginning of discos in Italy. The club had a revolutionary late license to 6, and a glass lift that allowed the DJ to move from the first to the second floor enabling them to gauge the mood of the clubs many interior and exterior dance floors. The venue was the musical home of Danielle for the coming years until he moved to Cosmo where he really made a name for himself with his afro/funk style cosmic disco. It was here that he developed his signature sound, this took influence from the clubs drug culture (mostly heroin, which caused its users to dance slowly) and the declining popularity of traditional dance music. In 1980 Danielle invented the “DJ Concert.” This consisted of four turntables, two mixers and electronic drums or live percussion, 80 to 100 tracks were mixed in not much more than half an hour: a super mega mix was born, all of it being carried out live.
Drug issues forced many clubs to close during the 1980’s, but Baldelli’s influence has continued right into the 21st century, aided by compilations such as ‘Cosmic Sound’ and ‘Back To My Funky Side’ on record labels such as Mediane, Cinedelic Records and Prismatikone.
This takes us to his most recent mix, recorded for Boiler Room in Bali. It is an hour long, packed with an eclectic range of his exclusives epitomising his slow paced cosmic style. Take a listen it’s a real treat. If you ever get the opportunity to see this man live, then definitely take it. He owns over 60,000 records so is not short of choice when it comes to ways to get you moving.
Words by Alex M
