At the forefront of Florence’s electronic music scene since 2010, Tropical Animals’ standout taste in club bookings was bound to lead to the formation of a label. Launched in 2018, and calling on past guests and local talent alongside friendly faces from a variety of scenes, they’ve quickly cemented their position as a bastion of intriguing, textured dance music. As this compilations name suggests ‘Rave In The Cave Vol.1’ is a subterranean collection of hard-hitting dancefloor cuts brought forth by a selection of their extended family.
The 10 track comp is laced with galactic offerings that retain a sense of real world rawness, from Nero Zang’s ‘Akasha’, to Mystic Valley’s ‘First Sight’ – the former a ritual dance between extraterrestrial arps, acid stabs and shamanic drumwork, the latter causing seismic shakes through 303 squelches and eerie vocal samples. Elsewhere, Gaiden’s ‘Star Seeker’ provides a sensory onslaught of thunderous acid bass tones, hyperspace arpeggiators and twisted vocals, built for big systems.
Captivating techno cuts are also conjured up from the depths. Two key sacrifices – the cutting claps, and mesmerising bleep sequences of Elisa Bee ‘Spiritual Movements’, alongside the bionic vocal loops and metallic, techy rhythms on The Analogue Cops ‘TAPETWENTYTWO’. Rising up, Michael Byrne unleashes ‘Babatti’, a breaks heavy number that swells with atmospheric pads and driving basslines, as Ricardo Baez presents a relentless, rising web of refrains and synth melodies in ‘Loco por la techno’ featuring Lonely Dancer.
Other rumblings from the underground see Ennio Colaci serve up a Detroit-leaning house number, ‘White Land’ with it’s crunching metallic drums and underwater gargles, as The Cyclist makes a second appearance for the label contributing a gritty, lo-fi techno payoff, Mantras Lost’, spliced with warped vocal snips and pulsing pads. Closing out proceedings SPO drops ‘Viaje Literario Edit Almeria 2019’ an EBM infused Italo bomb, heavy on the crunching synths and interspliced chatterings that rounds off this exquisite display of gritty, club-ready workouts. Essential cave-dwelling business.
10 tracks, 10 artists, a whole host of local talent, mixed with a smattering of world class, international producers that form one combined Tropical Animals family, epitomising a vibe they’ve carefully been nurturing for nearly 10 years.
