PIGNA PEOPLE - Let’em Talk

Techno made in Italy…for a while now, nothing new about that. There are

in fact quite a few crews from our shores lately busy conquering

Europe through the mixer. Now it's the turn of Rome's Pigna People to win over

the continental clubbing scene with a very cohesive album, suspended between

acid house, funk, italo-disco and, of course, old school techno.

The work of

Francesco De Bellis, Marco Passarani and Mario Pierro, DJs and producers for Pigna

Records, is at once a mix of innovation and a tribute/promotion of the

label itself, with 6 unreleased tracks and 6 more already well-known hits

from the label, reworked. Not particularly appreciated back home, they release this

double album mainly for the foreign market, which seems to appreciate more the

obsessive rhythms typical of the “Pigneto” sound. (Under Francesco De Bellis's name should be

counted his various projects, such as Jollymusic, Mr.Cisco and Mat 101. He's

him again, but just to give you an idea.)

The album's opening is

extremely acidic: Pigna People start out by recreating the small techno universe

of Detroit in their home base, expressing it through "Mixoff" and "Opera P", while

"Donkey Beat" is a long digital ride through Amazon rainforest atmospheres,

with pachydermic trumpeting wrapped in an orderly, composed techno that's never

banal. Far more convincing is the danceable "Flashin", which mixes more than one style into the usual

techno vial, floating between funk rhythms and special effects

à la DJ Hell. Truth be told, the track loses its way a bit along the road,

circling affectedly around its main theme, but it's definitely among the best

tracks on the album.

"Till The End" instead represents the lighter side

of Pigna, an ideal summary of the three DJs' styles, between Detroit and Chicago. The

warm, violent house beat fires its arrow in the opening of "Denied",

but the track, while danceable, never goes beyond the repeated, continuous kick drum,

kept sterilely alive right to the end. In short, these six unreleased tracks don't

leave us truly satisfied…

The second part, on the other hand, is a collection,

as already mentioned, of six other tracks already released in the past. If the album is

ultimately a tribute to Pigna Records' first birthday, that seems

fitting to us. And fitting and decisive is the beat of the exceptional “Tribute”, an excellent

club track that pushes the sound further toward Gigolos-style electroclash,

with less abrasive rhythms. The sense of aimlessness shows up here too, but only toward the

end… Had they trimmed the tracks down, the album might have come out

perfect, but there's no time to wonder about that, as we're already busy dancing to the

perverse funk of “Salvation”. Unpretentious is “Funk 005”, while the

twisted climax of “Hall” is good.

Let's be honest, though: the second part is

all in support of “Fregna”, Francesco's finest creation, where a great

bassline underpins a track that's long but never wearing. Purer still

Detroit techno mould is the closer, entrusted to “Funk 006”. Nothing original.

The second CD, on the other hand, consists of a single 69-minute medley, where

the young Roman label's biggest hits are mixed together. A record

that's all about dancing, and there's not much to add, since it's

essentially an identical, precise rehash of the first disc's style.

A techno beat that's not too hard but dark, with acid sounds occasionally winking

at house: the Pigna People formula never changes.

“Let'em Talk” is a monochromatic album, meant to give a well-

defined stamp to the Pigna Records sound. There's plenty to dance to and then some,

but it's more a work aimed at DJs, whether Italian or European. Only for

hardcore technophiles.

Ride the wave of great music

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30/04/2026