One of my all-time favs!
Koto is an
Italian synth pop group that originally consisted of Anfrando Maiola and
Stefano Cundari. Their most popular songs were "
Visitors", "
Dragon's Legend", "
Chinese Revenge" and "
Jabdah", released in 1983-1988. Koto is often associated with a genre of music called Spacesynth, a music style streamed from
Space Disco.
Unfortunately, it has been reported that Stefano Cundari died some time between
1991 and
1992 from a brain tumor.
Anfrando Maiola and Stefano Cundari helped to form
Memory Records, an Italian record company which specialised in mainly
Italo Disco releases. Koto's "Chinese Revenge" was the first record to be released on the
Memory label. It sold over 10,
000 copies in
Italy alone.
Both artists also helped to write, mix, and produce for a range of other artists signed to the Memory Records label, including "
Challenger" and "
Happy Song" for the band
Baby's Gang. Stefano Cundari is also known for his participation in the group "
Hipnosis" from 1982-1987.
Following their successful debut with "Chinese Revenge" both Maiola and Cundari helped remix the
Vangelis track "
Pulstar" for Hipnosis. Their remix of Pulstar reportedly sold over
200,000 copies worldwide.
By
1986 the mood of the record buying public was starting to change.
House Music was becoming increasingly popular, and the demand for Italo Disco tracks appeared to be in decline. Memory Records, along with other
Italo record companies of the time, started to suffer financially. Although attempts were made to respond to the changes by releasing House Music and Eurobeat tracks, the change was not successful and Memory Records went out of business.
In
1989, the
German record label
ZYX Music bought the rights to the entire Memory Records catalog, including the "Koto" name and recordings. They then brought in
Dutch record producer Michiel van der Kuy to re-record and remix some of the old Koto tracks. He then released several other albums under the alias "Koto" in which he remixed science fiction movie themes and other songs, like "Koto
Plays Synthesizer World Hits" and "Koto Plays Science-Fiction
Movie Themes". Michiel van der Kuy is also a member of the group
Laserdance and producer for the likes of
Alice DeeJay.
In recent years, Anfrando Maiola won back the rights to the "Koto" name and continues to produce music under this name. His latest tracks were: "Koto Is
Still Alive" (
2001) and "
Blow The Whistle" (
2003).
Koto was a one man project driven by Anfrando Maiola. Stefano Cundari was part of the producer team Zanni & Cundari, producing most likely all music for the record label Memory Records. Anfrando wrote the music, Zanni & Cundari produced it
......
(
Extracted from the
Wikipedia)
For further info, please refer to
http://www.myspace.com/kotomaiola
- published: 24 Jun 2008
- views: 2318027