Marco Giovanni & Lavidium's Space: Anthem Alert!!!

"I love anthems and I believe that everybody loves anthems; I just love playing lots of them." Working under the name Lavidium, veteran house DJ Marco Giovanni and his production partner John Fernandez (of Slipmatt production fame) recently sat down to create what's going to become known as the mother of all anthems, Space. Banging, tuneful, pumping and melodic, the tune screams monster hit (despite being vocal) and looks certain for massive success when it comes out later in the year. Signed to Mezz Records as our very first release, Space (certainly in our opinions) appears to have been liberally sprinkled with special magic powder (space dust-) sounding somewhere between Marc Spoon's Time To Dance and Binary Finary's 1999. We spoke to Marco this week, as the first test pressings arrived in the office.

Mezz: Did you have a particularly clear idea for this track-
Marco Giovanni: "Absolutely. The idea was to make it sound big. The thing is, lots of British producers have stopped making trance because they're too scared of what the Dutch guys do - that's the truth. But I believe there's lots of people in the UK now catching up with them; quite easily too."

Mezz: How long did it take you to record Space-
Marco Giovanni: "18 hours. We did it at John's studio in Essex. Sometimes I think producers make too many tunes and that's why I took a break last year from making tunes, for over 8 months in the end. I wanted to really think about what I was doing - I felt it was really important to get it right this time."

Mezz: You're known for playing pumping uplifting trancey house, looking back at your DJing style over the last 10 years, have you changed dramatically in style-
Marco Giovanni: "I've always liked entertaining people and always liked playing people tracks which they know, because I think you always get a better reaction when they do. Nine times out of ten, when I play my DJ sets, I play familiar tunes. Personally, I love anthems and I believe that everybody loves anthems; I just love playing lots of them."

Mezz: Are you moving towards progressive trance at all-
Marco Giovanni: "I'm a crowd pleaser and that's what I do. Everybody else is on this progressive tip at the moment and I'm not one for following trends. I've been playing this trance stuff for years and everyone who knows me knows I've always played a banging style. I like it and I don't see why I should change just because everybody's going progressive. If I was DJing and people weren't reacting to what I was playing then I would change it, of course."

Mezz: Which current producers do you rate-
Marco Giovanni: "A lot of the Dutch guys - people like Rank 1. The Dutch guys are so superior at what they do right now and they're the people I aim to be like. I didn't get it right for a long time, though and did a lot of music that wasn't very good. But that's been a learning curve, you've got to churn out crap. It's very rare that someone goes into a studio and their first tune turns out to be amazing, unless they spend an absolute fortune on top producers. I wanted to do it myself, but you learn from your mistakes anyway."

Mezz: Sasha recently said with reference to his sets at Twilo (New York) "We can't just turn up and play a load of anthems'…
Marco Giovanni: "(interrupting) I disagree, I totally disagree. You've got to remember that when Sasha and Digweed first started playing at Twilo they got no 'numbers' (people) at all - it took them over a year to get it to where they wanted. I've actually been to Twilo a lot, and their night is absolutely rocking, but I would say that three miles across the city, when I was doing the Tunnel Club in New York, I was doing something which nobody had done in New York before - playing banging, trancey anthems. The crowd reaction was incredible, and we'd be pulling in 4,500 people every time I did it. There's room out there for everyone. The American scene ha Tags

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