Fear

Song by Easy Going

Claudio Simonetti is an Italian composer and keyboardist, an ex-member of the famous band Goblin. Simonetti has specialized in the scores for Italian and American horror films since the 1970s and has worked as a producer on several films, including "Deep Red," "Suspiria," "Dawn of the Dead," "Tenebrae," "Phenomena," "Demoni," and "Opera." His work left an iconic mark on Italian cinema.

In 1978, Simonetti was working on several electronic disco projects, and he was a co-founder of "Easy Going" together with Paul Micioni, who was DJ of "Easy Going." After a few years, they became the creators of Italo-Disco.

"Fear" was released as a single EP and on an LP in 1979 on an Italian label "Banana Records."

The track was produced by Giancarlo Meo, whose turning point came with the collaboration with Simonetti. You can say that the whole Italian horror scene was influenced by a German movie "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" from the 1920s, and you can say that as well about "Fear" just looking at the cover of the record.

It is always lovely to hear about female audio engineers, and "Fear" had an opportunity to be mixed by one. Leanne Ungar whose mostly known for works with Leonard Cohen, was the lady behind the mixing desk.

The composition is thrilling, spacey, and horrifying. It has a mark of old-school Italian electronics from the late '50s and '60s. With its fast tempo, sharp plucky sequential bass, resonating sounds, sweeping toms, and vocoder layered vocals. It created a unique sound of Italo, an early Hi-NRG.

Simonetti is a synth pioneer, and it is hard to define all synthesizers he used in this piece. He mostly used "Arp 2600" and "Roland System 100," but the one synth that stands out in this song is the Minimoog, one of the most iconic monophonic synthesizers. The plucky bass is a creation of the Minimoog. Italians loved it, abused it, so did Simonetti.

A lot of European artists have been influenced by the work of Simonetti. "Fear" is a piece of music that kickstarted the evolution of Disco in many different directions, such as Hi-NRG and "Horror" Disco.

"Easy Going" was the most significant disco-music project of Claudio Simonetti, Giancarlo Meo, and Douglas Meakin.

Listen to this piece, it's once in lifetime production, and it offers a lot to be inspired with.