Italian producer Riva Starr – aka Stefano Miele – is an electronic artist who refuses to be bound by genres. Across the course of his career, and various aliases, Miele has touched on house, disco, techno and even touches of indie pop.
His latest album as Riva Starr, Keep Me On The Dancefloor, sees him returning to classic house, but bringing in touches of traditional acoustic songwriting.
“The main challenge of this album is that I wanted to detach myself from the usual club-ready tools that I've been known for,” he explained to us when we visited him in his London studio. “I wanted to do something a bit more in between, where I was trying to balance out the electronic and the acoustic side a bit more.”
In our new video interview, Miele breaks down the creative process behind the album’s opening track, House of Mirrors.
“House of Miro sits in between the club and the acoustic sort of vibe,” he says. “It's a guitar driven sort of track, even if we used a lot of synths. I used the Roland Juno X for some of the chords, and I used the Solina from Arturia for the strings, but everything was played live with no MIDI.
“I like that most of the album has no MIDI programming – everything has been played live, even if some of the bass are not super precise or whatever, it's always been nice to have that kind of human touch, human feeling.”
The track began life during recording sessions undertaken by Miele in his native Naples, with vocalist Harry Stone and collaborators Rosario and Sarah.
“We went there for two or three days, and at first it wasn't quite working,” Miele explains. “We didn't quite find the right key to produce the right tunes. I remember in the last few hours we had left, I’d put my headphones on and I was looking for samples and ideas.
“Then when I took my headphones off, I heard Harry just making this melody and mumbling some lyrics. It was so heart catching. It was so unreal. I was almost crying. I know it seems like an exaggeration, but it was such an amazing melody that came out of nowhere while Rosario was playing guitar and Sarah was playing bass.”
Even if some sessions started slowly, as Miele explains, the process of collaborating with different producers and songwriters was endlessly educational.
“Every time I do a session, I still feel like I'm at primary school with this sort of stuff,” he explains. “You know, there's so much to learn, but it's interesting and it's challenging. For me, it's just amazing. I can't wait to sit in the studio with amazing musicians and create new stuff, because the inputs you get from working with other amazing talents, it's unreal.”
From that point, Miele took the in-progress ideas back to his London studio to piece together beats and add synth lines. The heart of the beat, according to Miele, is rooted in the right kick.
“I found a good kick drum, which for me is 90% of the job,” he explains. “I could spend hours on a kick drum.”
In the video above, you can watch that beat come together, and see Miele break down the processing and arrangement of the track. See more of Miele’s studio essentials in the video below.
Keep Me On The Dancefloor by Riva Starr is out 24 April via Snatch!
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.