Alexander Robotnick
[IT]
Alexander Robotnick is a pioneering Italo-disco producer, whose “Problemes d’Amour” remains a cult dance track 30 years later and helped define early house and techno.
More than three decades have passed, and Alexander Robotnick (real name Maurizio Dami) is still making and releasing music (including many previously unreleased but heavily bootlegged 80s tracks, see Rare Robotnicks, 2003) and Djing internationally. After growing up in Florence, the capital of Italian rock in the early 80s, he made his debut on the Italian music scene as the founding member of Avida, a dance-cabaret band featuring Daniele Trambusti and Stefano Fuochi.
In 1983, he wrote, performed, and produced "Problèmes D'amour", published first by the Italian label Materiali Sonori and then by Sire-WEA. It went on to become a "cult track" of dance music and one of the most influential dance records of all time. In the mid-80s, Robotnick made soundtracks and ambient music for Giovanotti Mondani Meccanici ("Social Mechanical Youngsters", often abbreviated as GMM), an Italian multimedia collective formed in 1984 and specializing in computer graphics and art installations. He abandoned dance music in the late 80s and 90s for ambient and world fusion experiments. During the 90s, Dami produced numerous projects such as Masala, Third Planet, The Alkemya, Govinda, and E.A.S.Y.
In 2002, he founded his own label, Hot Elephant Music, and resurrected his old alter ego. Oh no... Robotnick! (2003) saw Dami’s return to dance music and the beginning of his DJ career. He took up DJing in 2003 in France on the invitation of The Hacker and Miss Kittin, and now tours with a hybrid DJ/live set, mixing old and new tracks and providing live vocal accompaniment in his particular drawling style.