The Lovers of Valdaro: Swedish Synthwave Situationists.

 

Given a choice between hip hop and Italo, Adam Warhester and Erik Gabriel respond in unison ‘ITALO!!'. When you think of the legacy of Cheiron Studios, and the Swedish production template for 21st Century Pop, this is refreshing. While the records produced by Denniz Pop’s disciples for the likes of Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys combined US R&B rhythms with stadium rock choruses, the legacy of Italo in Sweden is something that has been overlooked. 

 

The brilliantly named Lovers of Valdaro, reframe that history. Describing their music as Euphoric Melancholic Electronica, they put the early 'Swemixes' of artists like Fake, Koto, and Alphaville front and centre.  Adam's pulsating synths and judicious saxophone provide the perfect context for Erik's soaring vocals. Unlike Max Martin’s productions for The Weeknd, Taylor Swift, and Katy Perry, there is no musical ‘formula’ to EME. They rely instead upon the Lovers’ intuitive appreciation of moody Eighties synth-pop:

 

Adam: The formula consists of sad songs to dance to really.  It would have started way back with Ultravox or something? ‘Dancing With Tears in My Eyes’...and songs like ‘Being Boring’ by Pet Shop Boys. Minor chords, and quite sad songs with a dance beat. 

 

Judging by their Spotify playlists, they've both done their 80s electro-pop homework. The legacy of 'new pop' and the British invasion bands of the post-MTV era dominate: Eurythmics, Duran Duran, The Police, Wham, Kim Wilde, etc. As do the slightly later house-infused sounds of Madonna, Pet Shop Boys, and New Order. However, their cover versions are surprisingly leftfield: the Italo classic 'Brick' (by fellow-Swedes Fake), and Levi-model Nick Kamen's 1990 Nordic-hit 'I Promised Myself'. Europop cult classics: neither track ever got anywhere near the Top 40 in the UK.

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Adam: We had a conversation with our manager and also with our team that we wanted to do a cover. We had a few songs as suggestions but everyone in our whole team felt for these two songs. It fits our sound and we wanted to keep the feeling of the songs from the original. It is two fantastic songs.

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It is this euphoric quality of the Italo sound that is missing from other Scandipop appropriations of 80s electronica, be it The Knife, Tove Love or Zara Larrson. It is perhaps only Sally Shapiro’s 'I’ll Be By Your Side’ or, as Warhester suggests, Robyn’s ‘Dancing On My Own’ that fit the genre. Away from the Nordic region, Matt Pop's mixes for Huguenot's 'Be Where I Am' and Peter Wilson duet with Sean Smith on 'Verona' veer into that territory, as do US synth-wave artists like The Limousines, Brett, Visitor, and VHS Collection. None, however, have the consistent vision of Lovers of Valdaro.

 

While Italo was characterized by a production line of musicians and vocalists performing under a bewildering selection of pseudonyms, there is something very familiar about the concept of a 'duo', which also sits well with the legacy of 80s synthpop. Adam gets to play the enigmatic studio wizard, hovering in the background (very much in the mode of Vince Clarke, Dave Stewart, or Chris Lowe), while Erik is the charismatic star vocalist and focal point of the high-concept stage show.

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Not averse to remixes, the influence of 80s rock on 21st Century house can be heard in the duo’s more dance-orientated productions. The elongated 12-inch mix ‘Faster To Nowhere’, extends the Moroder throb into Eric Pridz territory, while ‘Rhythm and Decibel’ sounds like it takes place on a night out in Ibiza with Avicii and Swedish House Mafia. At the other extreme, Stefan Barkland’s Sputnik Void remixes push the pair in a more minimalist, Danny Tenaglia, techno direction.

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Erik: I can only speak for myself, that it's the kind of music that I grew up with, and still is a lot of that sound in modern pop that I listen to. 

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Adam: There is something about this sound that suits us as a duo but also recurs in the creation of music today. It is happy and gives energy.

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Befittingly the duo met in a club when Erik approached Adam about his cool clothes: ‘I liked Adam's style and was wondering what he was doing in life’. The first song they collaborated on was the epic electro-pop ballad ‘Lost Forever’. A widescreen tale of romantic heartbreak, it is very much in the vein of College’s ‘Real Hero’, and wouldn’t have been out of place on the soundtrack to Drive, or indeed an Eighties John Hughes movie. Serendipitously,  the song was eventually showcased in the denouement of David Färdmar’s 2020 film ‘Are We Lost Forever’. Although not written for the movie, the music and lyrics fit perfectly with the fragile aesthetic of a protracted and painful break-up:

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Erik: ‘Lost Forever’ was just our first single and it was recorded long before the film. We have mutual friends with the director David and he was a fan from the beginning of this song and the 80s. We are so proud of this movie and happy that David thought that our song was perfect for the movie.

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The LGBTQ community depicted in the film is, of course, woven into the Lovers of Valdaro identity. The name alluding to the two neolithic male skeletons found ‘embracing’ each other by archeologists in Mantua in 2007 captured the duo’s imagination. Twenty-eighteen saw the band play EuroPride in Stockholm and both Erik and Adam are in relationships with men. The timbre of Erik’s vocal also leaves the gender identity a little ambiguous, with the singer purposely eschewing his musical theatre training: 

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Erik:  (To) use your voice in a very trained kind of way, very big and lots of volume and strength; to be able to sing with orchestras: for me, it has become a very ”boring” sound, when everything is very technical and not being able to use your soft spots and the nerves in your voice, as I love to do in my pop music.

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Like a method-actor, Erik's theatrical persona disappears in performance: replaced instead with an emotional connection to the music that gives the Lovers a rawness that is at odds with their Scandipop contemporaries. Of course, this tension is central to the legacy of Italo, which often counterpoised the decorated melodies and impassive lyrics with Latino machismo and a prowling sense of menace. While the presentation of the duo at the 2019 Melodifestival emphasized a polished show-biz quality, elsewhere their videos are more nuanced:

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Erik: From the beginning, we have always made our music videos ourselves. Except for the Rhythm & Decibel video, where we collaborated with Mehdi Bagherzadeh.. But it's also something simple and almost ”homemade” in that, that makes it fit in the 80s we think.

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In this sense, they follow in the footsteps of the early music video stars, who pioneered the medium before it became an extension of Hollywood. Likewise, Lovers of Valdaro do not involve themselves in the kind of snobbish elitism that so often characterizes 21st Century appropriations of  80s music:  Berlin DJs who play only the instrumental versions of the records emanating from Rimini’s Altromondo. While electroclash producers focused on incorporating that sound into 'the mix', Adam says he is more interested in the process of composition and performance:

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Adam: I do not think I have a real synth hero. I am inspired by how artists and bands have chosen to perform both on stage but also how they create their music. Annie Lennox (Eurythmics), Pet Shop Boys, Madonna, and Depeche Mode are so iconic to me, both the music but also their image.

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It is this habilitation of both the substance and the surface culture of Eighties pop music that is so unique about Lovers of Valdaro. On the one hand, their output is cohered around a principle of quality control and original composition. On the other hand, their live performances embrace the kind of Situationism that characterized the stagecraft of their heroes: the spectacle of alienation and the avant-garde. 

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Their most recent single 'Eternal Embrace' is possibly their finest moment yet: a shimmering work of desolate disco delectation: its lyrics gesturing to the romantic ambiguity of their Italian namesakes. However, there is a back catalogue of bangers that all sound like they should have been number 1 in a parallel fantasy version of the 80s. ‘Lovers on the Run’, ‘Walk Alone’, ‘Heartbreak Believers’, etc would all sound great on a playlist from the summer of '84 and the infamous pirate station Laser 558.

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Erik: I was born 84, so I got a lot of the 80s even though I was not that much in the 80s decade. But I think the 80s has always been an influence for music all up to now. 

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Adam: I'm a 90s kid. haha... There was a lot of music from the 80s that was played at home when I was a child. There is something about the music from the 80s that makes me feel euphoric. It is magnificent at the same time melancholic.

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The duo is currently working on more tracks for what will hopefully be a full-length LP: ‘We will keep on releasing track by track but we see an album ahead. We aim for more dance beats & energy. Love and maybe a little bit of melancholy’. A visit to the UK and some live dates is also hoped for, and there is every reason to think The Lovers could hit big.

 

While English-speaking audiences consume more Swedish-produced music than they realize: there has always been a special relationship between the UK and versions of pop steeped in the melancholic melodies of Scandinavian folk music. Whereas Abba and Roxette pioneered the appropriation of American musical idioms, Lovers of Valdaro are in the unique position of being the 're-presenters' of a lost European musical heritage: not just synth-pop, but Italo.

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The moment Britain conquered MTV in the 1980s is, of course, a period of great diversity, as the breadth of styles from that era is a testimony and the performances of gender. In recent years, British artists like The1975, Years and Years, and Blossoms, have channeled this legacy to great effect. However, where Lovers of Valdaro differ is that they are brave enough to work Italo into the mix.

 

Italo was undoubtedly a core ingredient in the euphoric electronic sound of 80s pop and, indeed, the evolution of EDM. In the UK it reached a dead-end perhaps with Stock-Aitken-Waterman; and consequently, it is something of a taboo. However, the original sound was something Swedish audiences fully embraced. Bringing it back not only betrays Viking-like courageousness but invites one final question: is there anything the Lovers of Valdaro would never do?

 

'That's easy,' they reply in unison, ‘Hardcore metal. Hahaha...’.

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