As a huge fan of music of any stripe, one of my favorite things to do is simply follow wherever any piece of music takes me. Following in the footsteps of a recent share, I’d like to shift the ground by landing on another impressive bit of influential Italian house music that’s tied to it, Sold Out’s Souled – The Magic Of The Language Of Music In Effect.
Little-known or little-remembered outside their Italian birthplace, Sold Out was the creation of a trio of Neapolitan musicians, Alessandro Sommella, guitarist Domenico “Gigi” Canu, and bassist Sergio Della Monica, who took stock of the then-exploding UK acid jazz and American house and urban soul scene and decided to create a homegrown version of it. Working with American and English singers, Jerome Stokes and Sarah Warwick, and Neopolitan vocalist, Rio Maurizio DeFranchis, from their Naples studio, under various names and aliases — Sold Out, Sold Out!, Souled Out International, etc. — they functioned as a production collective in the early ’90s, even landing burgeoning producers like Joey Negro for remixes, who would become huge in the global dance scene, until Sold Out itself expanded into a sextet including all three vocalists to make a play for overseas success.
Although two of Sold Out’s founders, Domenico “GG” Canu and Sergio Della Monica, are no longer with us, all of those involved believed in the idea of introducing a looser feel to Italy’s far too assembly-line-driven electro-pop dance scene. As stated in the British pressing, they started the band “dismayed that Italy’s growing reputation for dance music was beginning to obscure its acknowledged taste for real soul music.” Sold Out signed to Columbia via Sony Music Italy and for a moment was the first internationally-released artist from the label. Although many of the tracks would be conceived in their Naples studio, all those involved would also gain the muscle of UK music production by fleshing out mixes and production at storied studios like Metropolis, Power Plant, and Eastcote Studios where big acts jockeyed for session time. Singers like Jerome they discovered while stationed in Naples as a Navy sailor and Rio when he came back from New York and fell in love with soul music.
Perhaps why Sold Out remains remembered in the UK is for Joey Negro’s “Andalucian” remix of their first single, “Shine On,” his first remix for a major label. On it you hear a unique mix of hard-nosed, grimy UK street soul with Sold Out’s soulfully sun-kissed and romantic melodicism. So popular was this remix and single that it was pressed for U.S. dance markets. Somehow, their blend of jazzy house-pop predicted a future that they might not fully exist in but on their full-length truly live in.
Arguably, 1991’s Souled – The Magic Of The Language Of Music In Effect sounds like an album stuck in the amber of its time. Much like its closest brethren, The Brand New Heavies or C+C Music Factory, and Sold Out’s likely own, influenced, offspring, like 2 Men 4 Soul, its heady mix of sample-based rare groove and real-deal instrumentation is from a time when chilling out meant something different (in time and space). Yet there is something refreshing about hearing it with fresh ears.
The first strains of the album’s music are a vamping electric piano leading us into the album version of “Shine On.” On it Sarah’s impressive vocals wrap around a luxurious, jazzy groove that’s hard to suss out what side of the soul equation it falls under. The original 8-track vinyl version of the record cut the album in two, with songs like “Compromise” and “Keep Me In Mind” bookending tracks building gradually through their six-minute-long grooves.
Songs like the Jerome Stokes-led “Secret Memory” tease slippery, sexy, funky grooves that felt like of the more electric soul being mined by Terence Trent D’Arby and early Lenny Kravitz before it became a pastiche. It’s no wonder that this track was outlined in the liner notes as their Donny Hathaway tribute. Instrumentals like “The Soldoutbeat” find that midway point between acid house and funk.
As for me, I’m drawn to tracks like the LP’s bookends. On “Compromise,” vaguely tropical sounds feel the atmosphere of a moody torch soul song sung by Jerome. Adjacent to it is a track like “Wasted,” sung by Rio, an acid jazz stunner that has this floating quality unique to the record. This is something the album’s second single, the downtempo “In My Life,” sung by Sarah, also inhabits with its urbanness. Bruce Forest, another icon of dance music, rightfully sussed out its seriously deep hidden house rhythms on its remix.
One final track to reintroduce to others should be Rio’s lead on “Keep Me In Mind.” Just four minutes long, it’s Sold Out’s take on Balearic music, drawing from the same inspiration 808 State would, adding to the mix their own gossamer-like funky, jazzy intonations. Although Columbia would try to reintroduce Sold Out into England as Souled Out on 1992’s remixed/resequenced Shine On, there’s just something about the original recipe that sadly didn’t catch on. As we begin to lose more media to CD rot, rendering great albums lost in cracks of history, here’s something Italian that needs remembering.
