Foggy

Name: Foggy Aka. Francesco Pintaudi

Where are you from and where are you based?
I’m from Palermo (Sicily), and after traveling between Milan, Berlin and the Algarve for around 4/5 years, I’ve now been based in Lisbon for 3 years. Berlin and Lisbon are my main sources of inspiration, because of the mix of techno/minimal music and tropical influences that I found there. Also a bit of Italo-Disco, which surprisingly I found more of in Berlin than Italy.

What style of music do you play and what are your influences?
My music is a free mix of everything that happens to me and the music that I listen to, and it changes as fast as my mood. I like to mix electronic beats and percussion with groove riffs of bass and melody along with a lot of samples that I record in my home studio. In the end, my music is “electronic songwriting” for dancing.

In these last months, I’ve listened to a lot of LCD SoundSystem, Polo & Pan, Acid Arab, Soulwax, Nu Guinea, some old funk from the ’70s, but my main influences have always been Velvet Underground, Lucio Battisti and probably Damon Albarn.

What’s your most memorable performance to date and why?
It was in Italy, 2013. I was playing guitar on a tour with Nicolò Carnesi, an Italian songwriter, and it was amazing because we were starting to play every week up and down in Italy. We played for around a year and a half nonstop, and I remember very well the last gig at Locomotiv (Bologna) — 600 people singing and many musicians on the stage, it was a big party and a really good memory for me.
That was the end of that tour, but the beginning of other situations.

As a spectator, I’ll say for sure The Cure in Taormina, 2005.

This is a video of the concert in question, just in case you want to understand what I’m talking about 🙂

Is there a song that you’re particularly proud of or that is special to you? Why? (and can we hear it?)
The first time that I visited Arroz Estúdios was last year. For me, it was amazing, a techno party until morning that came during a very bad period of my life. That night I had a lot of fun, and coming back to the center of Lisbon at about 7 in the morning I had in my head some sentences and a bass line. Two days later I recorded a song, which talks in some ways about that night and my thoughts and feelings.

The song is called “My Day” and marks the beginning of my first solo project, Foggy. You can find it on my Facebook page, Spotify or YouTube in a video shot between Lisbon and Cacilhas, in which we made the same journey as the night when the song “appeared” to me.

Editors Note: The song in question (which is amazing, by the way).

Do you have any other projects outside of your music? What are they?
I play with some bands in Lisbon, one which I compose and write for is Wattafog. We are a trio and if you are curious you can check out the EP “Dramatic Harmony” or the new single that came out this September, Burning My Time.

For two years I’ve been working only with music. My projects are always in music (boring! I know). Now I’m also producing an Italian band and probably soon I’ll start to work on my first EP, or maybe I’ll become a tailor.

Have you got any upcoming shows that Garden Collective members should check out?
I’ll be playing around Lisbon in the next months and in November in the north of Portugal, you’re always welcome to come!
The calendar is always updated on my Facebook page.

Anything else you want to tell us about?
The best way to communicate, I guess, is to listen to my music, which you can find through these links:
Facebook
Bandcamp 
Youtube
Spotify 
Instagram

Thank you and see you soon!

Foggy Aka. Francesco Pintaudi performed at Garden Collective’s September event, which you can read more about here.