I wasn’t planning to write another article about nostalgia, but this time some really interesting thoughts came up and I felt like sharing them with you.

It must have happened to you many times: you’re alone in your car listening to one of those songs that seem made exactly for that moment but… you feel like something’s missing.
Yes, it happened to me many times too. It’s like missing a place we’ve never been to, or remembering a moment we’ve never lived.

This is exactly what I feel every time I sit at my desk to rewrite those sensations.

Many think that writing synthwave music means faithfully recreating ’80s music. That’s not quite right. If it were, I’d have to trade my studio for a DeLorean with a fully working flux capacitor, but I’ve checked the dealerships around Monza-Milan and found none (though I’ve set an alert on AutoScout24, just in case…).

What we’re actually chasing is something much deeper.
It’s that feeling you get when listening to the saxophone in “Mediterraneo” and suddenly feeling the warm Tyrrhenian Sea breeze on your face, even though it’s actually just the heating in your Fiat Panda while you’re stuck in early February rain on the Tangenziale Nord near Cormano.

When I wrote “Mediterraneo”, in fact, I wasn’t trying to create a track that sounded like it was from 1985. I was trying to bottle that feeling I had watching the sun set over the Maratea sea, dreaming of escaping from that sunset while loving it desperately.

Let’s say it’s a feeling similar to when you stumble upon an old Polaroid. Those faded memories, that vague sensation of lightness, serenity, incompleteness, yet strangely pleasant. This is what I try to express through my music.

Also because the ’80s weren’t perfect. The hairstyles were questionable (no offense but…), and not everything was flooded with neon lights but with glossy brown laminate furniture and graniglia floors inherited from ’60s public housing.
But that’s not what matters. What matters is how we relate to that era today.

“My creative process mirrors this nostalgic journey. In the first, irrational phase, I let my subconscious play for me, as if trying to complete what’s missing in that moment. Then comes the rational phase, where I choose the right sounds and fix all the details.”

When I created “Auto Radio”, I needed my own radio station to take on summer drives. I hit PLAY and find myself traveling along the Italian coast. The deep voice of the announcer (the extraordinary Patrick Rizzi) keeps me company, and between jokes, traffic updates, and calls from listeners… I find myself sitting in my father’s Audi 100 in 1986. Right there, in that exact moment.

And the extraordinary thing is that it’s all subjective, personal. Every sound, every tom roll brings different memories to each of us.

And then I think… Maybe the magic isn’t in the past at all! Maybe it’s precisely the connection between past and present dancing together that creates this magic.

This is why we keep listening to synthwave. Not because we want to live in the past, but because we need the nostalgia of remembering what we’ve experienced. It’s precisely this strange bittersweet taste that we love.

In the end, we’re just going in loops, where the past is dreaming of the future and the present is that chase after the past.

Now excuse me, but I need to get back to composing. These emotions won’t write themselves…