Joey Negro steps up to the plate with his new collection of Italo House. A personal selection of the deeper side of Italian house music.rnrnFollowing on from the phenomenal success of the recent “Remixed With Love” compilation plus more Joey Negro compiledrnalbums including “GoGo Get Down”, “Backstreet Brit Funk”, “Destination Boogie” and the ever-popular Soul of Disco series ZrnRecords continues to release high quality compilations filled with lesser known disco, funk and boogie.rnNow it’s the turn of “Italo House” to get the JN selection treatment with over 20 tracks hand picked from the late 80’s andrnearly 90’s covering a lot of the deeper classics and some lesser known releases from a golden era of Italian dance music.rnThe late 80s were undoubtedly a golden era for dance music. A time which saw the birth of many genres and sub genres -rnfrom acid house to hardcore to Balearic - and of course Italo house. If you ask Jo Raver to name an Italo house track, they'drnprobably come back with Blackbox, Jinny, Fiddlefatti or one of many big piano tune. At the same time there was anotherrnequally distinctive sound coming out of Italy- a warmer, deeper, more emotional style which didn't yield any commercialrnhits. The sound was more jazzy and soulful with syncopated percussion, dreamy pads and, though piano was often used, itrnwasn't in the obviously programmed, big breakdown style which became a cliché of the Italo house genre. This morernunderground side of Italo was closer to the original American house sound- but still retained a very European flavour.rnIn common with other Z compilations which have featured Britfunk and GoGo, this album was an important release for me.rnImportant because I love a lot of the records, many of which have been largely forgotten about, but also because therernreally was a unique sound coming out of Italy, spread across many labels and involving numerous producers. As a result, itrnhas never really been fully showcased like this before. I'm glad this album exists for other people to discover or re-discoverrnthe deeper side of Italo house. Joey Negro – Feb 2014