In The Greenhouse with Cleveland

Andrea Mancini's journey as Cleveland began after a move from his home of Luxembourg to Brussels in the early part of the decade. 

A couple of years after the conception of his solo moniker, his first 12" saw the light of day on Oskar Offerman's White imprint in 2014, followed up two years later by a debut outing on John Talabot's Hivern Discs, a label he would return to again in 2017 and 2019. In between these offerings, ESP Institute also welcomed him for two releases, each showcasing his unique and personal take on electronic dance music.

Following the release of his recent debut for Amsterdam's Kalahari Oyster Cult, which continues to exhibit his non-conformist approach to audio semantics, he traces the tracks that translate the feeling of being in a heterotopian environment…

Forget about what you see, the plants, the green environment. Close your eyes. Feel the warmth, the air humidity, the sounds, the variety of natural perfumes in the air. A greenhouse is so much more than just “tropicality”, it’s a heterotopia we can enter.

“Heterotopia is a concept elaborated by philosopher Michel Foucault to describe certain cultural, institutional and discursive spaces that are somehow ‘other’: disturbing, intense, incompatible, contradictory or transforming. Heterotopias are worlds within worlds, mirroring and yet upsetting what is outside.”

To me, the Greenhouse is a shelter, that celebrates nature. The music I’ve chosen is not necessarily about plants, it is about that feeling of being in that heterotopian environment, that is so different from the exterior world which seems so hostile nowadays. This list includes electronic to non-electronic music, that has inspired and/or touched me. In no particular order.

Follow Cleveland. Buy Gamma on Kalahari Oyster Cult.