Italian radio host Coccolino Deep has continued to push his brooding electronic style with this week’s mix, weaving in an intertextual narrative that draws on the dark tones of Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. The result is a mix that combines Hollywood dialogue and an atmospheric medley of house genres.
For an electronica house mix, Coccolino is as effective as any DJ, seamlessly weaving together tracks and pacing the mood to keep the listener both excited and interested. This mix, however, is slower and less energetic than typical mixes. Here, Coccolino lets their darker musical colours fly. Through ambient sound effect, simple repeating loops and distance melodies, heavy with reverb, the tracks slowly draw the listener’s attention in without ever building tension or exploding with energetic release. Throughout, the mix feels significantly more melancholic and thought-provoking. An example of how this effect is created is the sixth track, ‘One On One’ (Bedouin Remix) by &ME. The soft, smooth vocals are distorted and repeated as the basic beat is looped over eight minutes. As the brooding vocals phase in and out, various layers of ethereal electronic trills and deep-booming percussion fills enter over the top of the shifting soundscape.
While the mix is competent and evokes some uniquely calm emotions, its real strength is in Coccolino’s use of dialogue from Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. The selected excerpts appear chronologically as they do in the film, giving the mix a strong narrative structure. The shifting pace of the mix is mimicked through the dialogue, which delves through the complication and resolution of the film’s narrative with an electronic atmosphere. Even though it is only present in a few vocal clips, the film engulfs the mix. With an intertextual tone and narrative structure, Coccolino’s dark sound is able to explore new dimensions of his electronica genre. An example of this is the argument between Mr. White and Mr. Pink that takes place over Lee Burridge & Lost Desert’s ‘Float On’. The hypnotic beat loops in the background as the emotional scene plays, drawing the listener in to an almost meditative trance as the overbearing sadness of the film’s narrative takes hold of the mix’s narrative. Nothing expresses the deep emotional response that Coccolino evokes more than the final song, Stealers Wheels’ ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’. The sudden shift from the dark atmospheric music and final dialogue to the film’s folk inspired acoustic guitar music ends the mix with happiness and energy, acting as a contrast to everything the audience experienced.