Music Various Artists – Welcome To Paradise (Italian Dream House ’90-’94) – Vol. 3 – 2LP Best

Safe Trip is taking one final deep dive into the warm waters of Italian dream house with Welcome To Paradise Volume 3, the concluding chapter in the label’s journey through the previously overlooked world of one of dance music’s most vibrant and influential underground movements. 

While the influence of dream house continues to echo through the ages, the style was at its peak between 1989 and ’94, when producers across Italy delivered a high volume of loved-up, wavy and occasionally blissful productions that fused contemporary deep house tropes – most notably from Chicago, New York and New Jersey – with elements borrowed from ambient, jazz and Balearica.

It’s this six-year period that provides the focus for Welcome To Paradise Volume 3, which draws together a spine-tingling mixture of sought-after classics, unheralded gems and little-known delights from the original Italian dream house movement.

Thrillingly, Welcome to Paradise Volume 3 co-curator Young Marco has managed to source two previously unreleased tracks during the dream house period: the gently unfurling, sunrise-friendly bliss of Jacy’s “Resounding Seashell” and a special “Longer Edit” of Neurostate’s brilliant “Dance To The House”, a track that – somewhat surprisingly – has never previously been issued on vinyl before.

Elsewhere, there are plenty of treats to set the pulse racing, from the must-have deep house brilliance of Leo Anibaldi’s “Universe” – a rare foray into dream house territory from the Italian techno pioneer – and the Afro-bleep-goes-dream-house trip of Golem’s “Sun City”, to the cowbell-driven, New Jersey garage-influenced warmth of Deep Choice’s “Children Trip” and Cosmic Galaxy’s “Walkin’ On The Moon”, a Detroit techno-influenced outing with a deliciously saucer-eyed, extended ambient intro. You’ll also struggle to find a more inspired house record than Green Baize’s “Tramp Heart”, which mixes familiar dream house elements with spacey electronics and tribal chants that recall Italy’s early ‘80s Afro-cosmic scene.

It all adds up to another essential selection of rich, glassy-eyed dream house treats tailor-made for sound-tracking drawn-out Adriatic sunsets, Mediterranean sunrises and loved-up parties the world over.

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