"Diamonds, fur coat, champagne" Hard Ton, discussing their musical inspiration!

'Selfish' is Hard Ton's debut EP for Gigolo Records, an artist in the true sense of the word, and one that appears to follow the same lineage as previous label mates Fischerspooner, Tiga et al. For those unfamiliar with this dazzling addition to our roster, then we must turn to his short biog for an excellent introduction 'What would happen if Divine had been captured by disco aliens and later beamed back to modern day Italy? The answer is closer than you think, and maybe you need look no further than Hard Ton, the biggest disco queen of the XXI Century. With a body that can only remind us of John Waters' muse, a voice that confidently pulls-up to Sylvester falsetto's, all set to soundtrack that hops between accelerated beats and shameless acid sounds. He is omnivorous, feeding from the multilevel outfits of Leigh Bowery and modern pop imagary. With his 150kg Hard Ton is Giorgio Moroder low-fat grooves model, with all points colliding into a heavy weight Chicago-sound queen machine.'

Such a confident description can only come to music and art that is bold in its approach and realized shortly after inception. Recorded and mixed in Bologna and Venice the writing process has no rules 'we can start from a bass line or a vocal line, but we can also start a track just from thinking of a costume we want to make for a show, or a picture we would love to do, or for a cover for a single or a magazine. Visual, music and lyrics, they all come together.' Using, exclusively, analogue and vintage gear from the 303, 606, 707, Oberheim DMX, Korg Monopoly, MS20, Prophet V5 the list goes on and is a calling card to any gear-nerd. But the music never becomes stiff or contrived, in fact it always remains fun, as expected when you play with equipment that lives and dies by its own unpredictable rules. 'Once you start to mess around with it, you never know what's gonna happen.'

The writing process and the instrumentation informs the music, and by now you should have clear idea what to expect; songs, fashioned in a disco style, with a modern approach to the classic Chicago sound as a back drop. With this in mind it comes as no surprise that their musical references range from 'Arthur Russell, Drexciya, Gaz Nevada, Duran Duran, Justus Khoencke, Moroder, Terre Thaemlitz, Diana Est, Khan, UR, Madonna and early acid house...' Previous releases on the amazing Dissident records further consolidate both the genesis and existence of this group. But outside of this Hard Ton fronts a heavy metal band and references Rob Halford from Judas Priest and Geoff Tate from Queensr che as inspiration. With this in mind we can sit back and listen to music with the comfort that future releases will hopefully be as schizophrenic this story.