Release Date: September 2nd 2011

Formed in June 1981 State of Art are one of the few new wave bands to emerge from Italy. Formed by singer Federico Di Bonaventura, bass player Stefano Tirone and guitarist Stefano Mazzola in Milan, the band worked together for almost two years before Federico split to pursue a career as Fred Ventura (who recently had his career retrospective released as Disco Modernism by Clone Records.)

Their output was recorded over various studio sessions through 1982, beginning with the track Venice for influential wave zine Rockerilla. It is this track that Headman is re-releasing on his Relish imprint, backed with remixes from himself and JR Seaton. Relish Recordings continues its pattern of reissues focused on bringing lost tracks from influential acts to a contemporary audience. Previously reissues have appeared from The Units, A Certain Ratio, Liquid Liquid’s Dennis Young and R.I.S.

This package features the original 1982 recording of Venice, a taught, quintessential slice of European post-punk. Alongside this Headman offers a disco house dancefloor rework and dub that stays faithful to the original’s core parts, whilst embellishing with a central arpeggio. Finally JR Seaton remakes the track into a nine- minute Detroit techno trance vision built around a relentless single note sequence.

Already supported by Boris Dlugosch, Leo Zero, Erol Alkan, Severino (Horse Meat Disco), Joakim, Rory Phillips, Ivan Smagghe, Eric ‚Dunks‘ Duncan and many more…