Italo House

Italo house is the Italian variant of house music that flourished between 1989 and the mid-1990s, fusing Chicago house rhythm with the melodic inheritance of Italo disco. Its signature is the piano: bright, insistent electronic piano chords and riffs played over drum-machine beats, under diva vocals sampled or sung in English. Producers around Rimini, Riccione and Bologna — many working through *Gianfranco Bortolotti*'s #Media Records# stable — built tracks for the Adriatic Riviera's clubs, and acts such as *Black Box*, *49ers* and *Cappella* carried the sound to international charts before it hardened into Eurodance.