Review: Massimiliano Pagliara ‘See You In Paradise’

Massimiliano Pagliara’s latest release opens with a confident, warm synth beneath glitching, uncertain chords. Persistently There warms up gradually, knowing its purpose is to warm listeners to the rest of the LP. It breathes and swims itself to life with an essence of, “we’re going somewhere, and I’m going to take you there”.

And that’s exactly what See You In Paradise is – a warm journey. It blends together Italo, electro-pop, techno and nu-disco in a varied abandon that rises with each new track and never falls.

Half-time Dreams is a sultry trip-hop landscape of romantic fantasies as INIT’s vocals float like clouds, while Reset (ft. Fort Romeau & Coloray) claps and echoes with an unapolagetic 80s synth-pop-disco flair.

Snap Out feat. Snax is a melodic piano anthem that won’t let go, soaring to new heights with each newly composed refrain, Mitiate unwinds like a breathless Nils Frahm-esque meditation, and Intense Affectionate surprises with a return to harder club bass thumps and elastic electro pings.

Much like paradise is supposed to be, there’s something for everyone on this record. Pagliara has somehow managed to tie all of the great things that people respond to in electronic music – melodies, churning bass lines, the warmth of a carefully composed synth – and extract them from their individual genres to create a varied but uniform record that leaves you with nothing less than a smile.

You can purchase See You In Paradise here, and listen to it below.