Froz - Rave Flashbacks

Rave Flashbacks is the eight-track album from NTS Radio resident DJ Francesco Fusaro, also known as Froz. This self-released collection of tracks draws inspiration from rave history, both past and present, as Froz explores the approach of artists such as Leyland Kirby (V/Vm) and Lorenzo Senni. Rave Flashbacks showcases Froz's ability to create compelling music using limited resources, delving into musical idioms like noise, lo-fi, and glitch that he has never fully explored before.

The creative process behind the album is straightforward. Froz explains, "I plundered old, battered techno trance records to create the album and manipulated them using the humble-but-iconic sampler, Bastlr's Microgranny." The album was produced during a dark period of isolation in Froz's hometown. Reflecting on the origin, Froz recalls, "I remember being at my mum's place for my Christmas holidays some years ago. I was browsing through my record collection to kill time and stumbled upon this terrible batch of techno trance records I don't remember ever buying. Skipping through them, I found some quieter moments that compelled me to quickly digitise them before I knew what to do with them. When I finally got back home to London, I transferred those clips to my Microgranny, and that's when the fun part really began for me."

Despite its conception, Froz's approach to the subject matter of rave culture is indeed tongue-in-cheek. He finds 'chinstrokey' takes on the same theme often dull and uninspiring. While Froz has never experienced a rave like Kirby or Senni, his upbringing on UK electronic music has given him "rave flashbacks" that are counterfeit, mediated from someone else's recorded memories. This approach aligns with artists like Burial, who also utilises sampled ghosts from a rave afterlife.

With a runtime of just a quarter of an hour, Rave Flashbacks offers a short yet immersive experience—a fleeting dream or a haunting nightmare—just before waking up to another dreadful day of work.