It’s All About The Angles
Singita Miracle Beach Singita Miracle Beach is located in Fregene, a wind blown summer town on an endless strip on sand, down the Autostrade, by the sea. It’s just past Fiumicino, really not that far from Rome as the traffic flows. I suppose it’s the Roman equivalent of Brighton, close enough for a day trip, the closest bit of sea to the big city. Of course, being Italy, the beach is long and sandy, the roads are narrow, straight and stressy and the place is decked-out cool and breezy, bikini beautiful. Unlike the other bars on the strip, Singita has been angled to face the setting sun. At the centre of a spread of four-poster daybeds, horizontal loungers and sheets laid out like picnic blankets, there is a large gong. At sunset the gong is beaten to mark the passing of another day by a big man with impressive, expansive beard. Pumping out sound from the system in the sand is Antos Gurumusic , the resident DJ. He plays music for lounging – soul classics, spacy electronica and slo mo disco. He has invited me to join him for a sunset session. Playing music in these situations makes me extraordinarily happy. I cannot exactly explain why. It’s just some magical, beautiful, cosmic combination of beach, sea, people, sun and sound. A pause. An attempt to reach something more… I don’t want to use the word spiritual, perhaps I just mean something beautiful. A simple, shared experience. The golden light of evening making everyone look so lovely. The simple sentiments of a love song expressed in a place where they don’t sound banal. God only knows, it’s just the world turning, it’s just the end of another day made special by us and the love and the music. No, it already is special. It would surely be just as beautiful if we were not here to witness it. It will surely be just as beautiful at some time in the far future when we and our music and our weakness and stupidity are long gone. So perhaps playing for the sunset is just an extension of the dying harmonics of the banging of the gong, not even big enough to call itself a wave, just the tiniest ripple expanding into the infinite.