LEMON SCENT
His quirky house tracks have caught the imagination like few other producers over the past
couple of years, and now he’s set to really break through into the big time. But who the hell is Riva
Starr? DJmag ventures to his studio for the lowdown…
Words: CARL LOBEN
iva Starr has rapidly become one of the it was early house music in the late ’80s,” he recalls. of new ideas. “The scene was too closed,” he believes.
R
coolest names in electronic music. He’s He started DJing when he was 15 and ventured into “There were a few people trying to act like dictators, not
released on Claude Von Stroke’s Dirtybird, production around fi ve years later. Quickly learning leaving enough space for the new people or those not
Norman Cook’s ever-consistent Southern Logic, he bought his fi rst computer and various bits of belonging to the UK scene.
Fried and Get Physical offshoot Kindisch, analogue equipment “because I’m an analogue freak,” he “It was ridiculous people getting the same awards all the
and his album — ‘If Life Gives You Lemons, Make chortles, glancing over at banks of analogue gear. time at Breakspoll,” he continues, “and ideas-wise it was
Lemonade’ — has just dropped on Jesse Rose’s Made To He started out making electronic pop, scoring a deal with a bit stuck in the same sound. No new ideas were coming
Play stamp. Virgin Records in Italy and releasing a couple of albums into the scene — it was like when you don’t put water
He’s also fi nishing off a mega double mix CD compilation — ‘Pista Connection’ and ‘Flux’. These were both heavily into the fl owers, the fl owers after a while just die.”
‘Nobody Freaks Like Us’ for house heavyweights Defected, infl uenced by the Pizzica and Tammorriata folk styles Meanwhile fi dget and electro-house were growing, and
lining up a huge Miami WMC, and is about to become a from the south of Italy. By now he was DJing all over he thought it was time to try something new. Riva Starr
dad for the fi rst time. What a great way to start a new Italy, and just before the millennium decided to make was born.
decade. dance music his main focus.
‘Lemons’ is packed with forward-thinking, quirky, He started making tracks with the sound he was really
reverential yet futuristic house music. Riva Starr switches Hooking up with Italian label Mantra, he chose the name feeling at the time, set up a Riva Starr MySpace page and
between burlesque Balkan, mischievous samples and Madox for his fi rst release — ‘The G-Toolz EP’. He lifted sent demo links to labels he loved. “They got back to me
bleeps and quirky oompa-oompa hoedowns with a the name from renowned English author Ford Madox very quickly, so I got my fi rst Riva Starr releases on Jesse
common thread running throughout. It’s nu-house with Ford, whose pioneering WW1 novel The Good Soldier he Rose’s label Made To Play and also Dirtybird and Southern
a comedy headfreak element, but there are some quality was digging at the time. Fried.”
slabs of precision-cut phuture funk on the album, too. His early Madox tunes soon began receiving plays from Claude Von Stroke was fi rst to license some tracks for the
His nearest antecedents are probably quirky house outfi ts breakbeat’s upper echelons like the Stantons and the ‘Bubble EP’, and then Jesse Rose signed ‘Thizzle’ and
on the magnifi cent Classic Records — Derrick Carter and Plumps, and he received plaudits for his superb ‘China Gum’ a couple of weeks later. “I was super happy
Luke Solomon’s label, arguably the most innovative percussive Brazil-inspired ‘Adventures In Drum: Brazil’ because I was building my career up from scratch,” he
house label last decade — such as Greenskeepers and Iz release in 2004. He had a couple of releases out on says.
& Diz, but his is a sound all of its own. Westway, got in with the Finger Lickin’ crew, and pretty He’s now successfully built up this new identity, and has
“I think that house music is like a magician’s hat,” Riva rapidly rose to the top of the breakbeat tree. distanced himself from the fi dget tag that he was fi rst
tells DJmag. “You put your hand in and you never know “At the time everything was so fresh about breakbeat, associated with. “Fidget now has become a bit too
what can come out. House music is so good because and a lot of people were into it,” he remembers. “I wasn’t commercial and hard for me,” he exclaims.
no-one can put limits or barriers on it. Everyone can try feeling that much love for house music, there didn’t seem
to make everything they want, so long as it sounds to be many ideas in it. My friend Santos moved to Brilliant
good.” breakbeat at the time for the same reasons, we found it Riva Starr’s brilliant album is gonna catapult him into the
very fresh.” upper echelons of the nu house scene. It begins with
Riva Starr welcomes DJmag into his East London studio Santos had been a well-known house producer (he had a surreal knees-up cut ‘I Was Drunk’, the Beatport
on a cold winter’s afternoon. It soon transpires that his huge hit with ‘Camels’ around millennium time) and chart-topper that’s a collaboration with French
real name is Stefano Miele, he’s from the Italian city of helped Madox gain his fi rst release on Mantra. After a piss-takers Nôze, before unfolding into understated
Naples, and he used to be a well-known breakbeat DJ/ while they started Trouble Soup together, making some electro-funk, 808 State anthemia (‘Black Mama’), ’30s
producer who went under the name Madox. tracks and remixes and compiling a ‘Y4K’ for the swing with bonkers Balkan bleeps (‘Black Cat, White
When Riva Starr productions started to sneak onto blogs acclaimed Distinctive mix comp series. “It was good fun, Cat’), spaghetti western cut ‘Once Upon A Time In
and his name cropped up on assorted East London Santos is a great producer, he’s working with Timo Maas Naples’, South American experiment ‘Maria’, and old
after-hours party fl yers, the hype machine went into now,” Stefano says, sagely. school Chicago paean ‘Tribute’ — all killer, no fi ller.
overdrive: who was this newcomer? Stefano didn’t reveal Trouble Soup stopped because they lived too far apart, He starts chatting about receiving emails from Balkan
his true identity for many months until he’d allowed his although he says they may still collaborate again in the beat DJs who claim he’s revitalising their scene.
tunes to do the talking. future. “We’re having the same sound evolution in a “Because Naples is very close to the Balkan area, and to
“Because I had a well-known project going on with way,” he says. Greece and to the top of Africa, there are different music
Madox, I really didn’t want people’s feedback to be infl uences in South Italian music,” he says. “That’s why I
affected by my breakbeat project,” he outlines. Disillusioned have this strong infl uence — I used to listen to
“Sometimes, if you’re doing feedback on a track and you Stefano then moved to London’s east end in 2007 just as traditional music, I love it. It’s really rootsy and
know that producer has done something different in the his ‘Plastic Fantastic’ album was coming out on Mantra. danceable, and I’ve always been struck by it.”
past, your view can be affected. That was the main reason He wasn’t that happy with it though, it was more than
I kept my identity a secret at fi rst. two-years-old by the time it was released, and he wasn’t If the Rage Against The Machine Xmas No.1 triumph in
“It was a fresh start, but I don’t mind telling people now feeling it anymore. the UK has further torn up the rulebook, Riva Starr is
that I was producing breakbeat. I still love a lot of He soon hooked up with Richie Hawtin’s old Plus 8 mate relishing the anything-goes attitude to music production
breakbeat and I’m still hoping that something new and John Acquaviva for some 4/4 experiments. “We did a and looks to refuse to be pigeon-holed for a long time to
fresh can come out of it.” track called ‘Feedback’, it was like an early electro-house come.
track and went straight to No.1 on Beatport — “When sub-genres happen, the sub-groups very quickly
Brought up in Naples, Stefano remembers his fi rst taste incredible,” he recalls. “We did a few other singles too, become cliques,” he reckons. “Then they become clichéd,
of dance music vividly. one with Tommie Sunshine, and a few gigs together because people impose rules on sub-genres. But the
“I started listening to Saturday night mix set including his party in Ibiza. It was good fun.” great thing about music is self-expression. Fuck rules!”
programmes broadcast live from a famous Naples club – By now he’d become disillusioned with breakbeat’s lack
036
www.djmag.com
DJ482.riva_feature.indd 36 13/1/10 10:46:16
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