Verdo - Gratis Club (2026)

Despite being something of an Adriatic legend - at least as a DJ - new material from Verdo has been few and far between over the years. 'Gratis Club', his much-anticipated debut album, is therefore a genuinely significant release. Named in honour of a venue where he held a DJ residency for years, it sees Italy's answer to DJ Harvey offer up a colourful, tactile and club-ready blend of Adriatic Italo-disco revivalism (opener 'Let In The Light'), nods to the formative years of Italo-dance ('Boulevardier', with its glistening house pianos and throbbing sequenced bass, and the thrusting title track), slo-mo Balearic synth-pop chuggers ('Ballad') and acid-fired, 21st6 century Dutch West Coast muscularity ('Lest We Forget').