Lunar Disko presents Francisco

Lunar Disko

Lunar Disko presents...

Saturday February 3rd @ The Underground, Kennedys.

Adm: e8 before 12 / e10 after. Doors 11pm

Francisco (Nature / Pigna - Rome)
Andy Doyle (Lunar Disko)
Barry Donovan (Lunar Disko / Electric City)

Heres a bit more about the man:

Video: http://www.blue-room.it/video/97/franciscoblueroom-14012006

Interview & article:

Roman Funk
written by Jason Riley, for IDJ magazine

Rome’s Nature/Pigna Records are the leading exponents of ‘Roman funk’ – Italian house music
influenced by the Italo-disco sound...
Flick through any dance music mag right now and you’re guaranteed to come across a
mention of Italo-disco. Browse through the racks down at your local record emporium and
you’re equally likely to come across an Italian production shot through with not a little bit of la
dolce vita.
The Italo style – think motoric pre-house beats, melodic analogue synths, arpeggiated
basslines and heavily vocodered vocals which veer close to campness – has made something
of a clubland resurgence of late, and its influence runs through European house productions
like the name of seaside towns does through sticks of rock.
This unmistakably retro sound is nowhere more apparent than in the Roman funk of Francesco
De Bellis (AKA Francisco) and his Pigna Records cohorts Marco Passarani and Mario Pierro.
After a series of funk and Italo-heavy singles (‘Moon Roller’, Esplanade 97’, ‘Fregna (The
Age)’) which have caused quite a stir amongst fans of modern electro-house, he’s about to
release his debut album ‘Music Business’ on Nature.
As well as this, the three of them have together made an album that borrows heavily from
their country’s mutant electronic strain of disco.
“After 20 years people are finding new sounds from another time,” Francisco explains. “The
Italo-disco is a good alternative. It’s fresh, like a new style.”
Having formed Nature Records in the mid-’90s, this trio of like-minded Detroit techno, street
dance and Chicago heads Passarani, Pierro and Francesco have been working together
collectively for over ten years, be it as Mat101 and Jolly Music (Marco and Francesco’s former
incarnations) or on Nature’s baby brother label Pigna.
“The Pigna sound is a super combination of our own differences,” Passarani tells us of their
label. It’s only now, however, that they’ve made a record that perfectly encapsulates the
Pigna modus operandi.
Pigna People’s ‘Let ’Em Talk’ LP, is arguably the most exciting house album to come from Italy
in some time. As sexy and cosmic as it is punchy and jackin’, it’s proof that Italy’s alternative
club scene is a million miles away from the insipid progressive and tribal house it had become
synonymous with.
“Like the label, we did it because we couldn’t find anything that sounded like the music we
wanted to hear on the ’floor,” Mario says of the Pigna sound. “We tried to accept the rules of
the dancefloor and not make any compromises.”
“You can feel the Italo-disco influences in our music, as well as many other things,” continues
Passarani. “We’re from Rome and this dramatic, atmospheric style is always showing up! It’s
in our DNA.”
“Disco music has always had a big influence in Italy,” adds Mario. “Italians have this long
history of melody and making harmonies out of things.”
They’re not the only ones looking to the past for creative inspiration. There’s a new wave of
Italian producers like Franz & Shape, Ajello, Mogdax, Renato Dozzy, Fabrizio Mammarella and
Guglielmo Mascio, most of whom are also Roman, making groovy, Italo-esque electronic
house: tracks by both Franz & Shape and Ajello got recognition outside of Italy when tracks
appeared on the ‘Italian EP’ on Relish last year, and a second EP, this time featuring
Mammarella, is on the way at the end of the year.
Vicenza-based duo Mogdax have released a couple of EPs (‘Made In Italo’ and ‘Jack Ibiza’) of
pitched down, Metro Area-esque house and spacey disco, and are working alongside Nu Funk
Klan’s Mascio on his debut production outings.
So where does this fascination come from? “For me, this music is fun and the analogic sound
is important to me,” Francesco says. “To me it’s a cheaper version of the American disco,”
adds Passarani. “In Italy it’s seen as b-series music and is viewed as very cheesy and
commercial, which is how a lot of Italo was in the ’80s. But after all these years we have
slowly found that there were a lot of producers back then doing really good quality, innovative
stuff.”
It was a music born as much as anything of restrictions, as Italian producers tried to ape the
big Philly disco records – often produced with full orchestras for vast sums of money – on
cheap home studio set-ups with polyphonic synthesisers and drum machines.
“That’s why a lot of it sounds so fresh, because somebody was trying to take those machines
to the level of complexity of the Americans,” says Mario. “It’s a very early kind of house
music. They were using the same electronic instruments as early house and techno producers,
but with disco influences,” Marco continues.
Unlike their US counterparts, these pioneering Italian producers are much less recognised.
Daniele Baldelli, Claudio Simonetti, Maurizio Dami (AKA electro legend Alexander Robotnick),
Stefano Pulga, A Zanni and Celso Valli, as well as production outfits Kasso, Gaz Nevada, Steel
Mind, Kano, Jago, Charlie, Scotch, Capricorn, Koto and Gazebo, amongst others, are only
today getting the recognition they deserve, not least from UK producers and Italo revivalists
Crème Organisation and Clone from The Netherlands.
Indeed, early house clubs like Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles’ Music Box in Chicago played a
lot of Italo-disco, the infamous Hot Mix 5 label borrowed from its harmonic style and even in
Italy when house first made its mark in the early ’90s, producers would take old Italo tracks
and lay 909 drum beats over them.
“Dance music now must be about the song,” says Francesco of today’s cutting-edge house
music. “It’s not about simple tools for DJs anymore.“Italo is like this because it was not a tool.
It was a song with a big melody for fun and dancing and partying.”
It’s true – Italians do do it better!

http://www.myspace.com/raidersofthelostarp

Lunar Disko

In anticipation to Francisco's Irish debut on Saturday Feb 3rd, we sent the man a few questions to find out a bit more about this Italian funkster!.....


1) First off...this will be your first to play in Ireland, have you heard
anything about Dublin, in particular from Marco Passarani who has
previously played here?

Yes, I will be playing in Dublin on feb the 3th.
I'm very happy and Marco told me very great things about Dublin: one
of the warmest crowds in Europe. Looking forward to it!

2) How did you get into music / DJ / producing, and how would you
describe your DJ sets?

I started in 1989, when my father bought me the technics. It was great
for me to start in that period when the house music was on the top. And
I was crazy about this. After the early days of techno I did get closer
to english electronic especially to the warp records stuff. In this
period ('94/’95) I met two guys, Mario Pierro and Emiliano Tortora, and
then started to play music with analog synths and made my first step
into producing. The influences about my dj sets comes from many
directions: electro, disco, space disco, techno, Chicago house. I like
to mix everything, I like to party.

3) What are your musical influences?

The musical influences on my work have been many and new ones keep
always arriving: as I said I started with house music in ‘89, mickey
oliver and all hot mix 5 released have been very important to me; UR and
plus 8 have been the best techno labels of the first '90s. As I said the
Warp Records was very important for me when I started to play music,
especially artists like Aphex twin, mu-ziq, Autechre etc...Disco music
is my life. And I go crazy for soundtracks, especially the '70s italian
producers like Morricone, Micalizzi, Cipriani, Goblin, Frizzi and many
others.


4) And what artists/producers/labels are you currently into?

At the moment I'm really into Redshape, Spirit Catcher, I'm always
in love with the dutch scene (Clone, Klakson, Viewlexx).


5) How did you come about meeting Marco Passarani, and what made you
guys start the labels?

We met in '94. Marco was already working with his own label and we
at the beginning worked together in some clubs in Rome as DJs. I got him
to listen to some of my works with the other two guys and so everything
started.

6) You released your debut LP ' Music Business ' not so long ago, after
a string of 12" releases. The album seems to have created quite a stir
amongst house and electro djs. How do you feel the album done?

I usually prefer play music with other people, especially when I am
making
an album. Sometimes I think that making an album is somehow like
making a movie, it is important there are many people involved. But I am
very happy about my first solo album, it was a really good experience.

7) Over the past couple of years there seems to have been a revival of
sorts in the Italo-Disco sound, how do you think this has come about?

Sometimes when there is some difficulty to find a new music style
it is normal to pick up something from the past. I love the italo-disco
so for me this is amazing. Most of the italo productions are really good
especially for the sound because I love the analogic sound and it is
easy for
me to find a good feeling with this music.


8]Yourself, Marco Passarani and Mario Pierro are the members of 'Pigna
People'. Can you give us some insight into this musical project?

Pigna label is the sub division of our older label called Nature. Pigna
People was a project we have done in order to celebrate the 10th
release of the Pigna label. What is important about this project is that
for
the first time since we know each other we have done something together.

9) And what future plans have you guys for the label? What can we expect
in 2007 from Rome?

There will be new releases on Pigna and Nature: new records from
the 3 of us (the new Raiders of the lost arp work, features two remixes
from the Uderground Resistance camp) a couple of 12'' from a very talented young producer, andmuch more.

Meanwhile I'm working on the new Francisco album which won't come out
earlier than the next fall season.

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Also, here is a little Francisco / Pigna megamix to get you in the mood for Feb 3rd...Enjoy!

http://electricity-dublin.com/_upload/Francisco_mix.mp3

Barry Donovan - Pigna Funk!

1.Raiders of the Lost Arp - Arrival
2.Raiders of the Lost Arp - Funk 005 (Francisco Mix)
3.Francisco - Moonroller
4.Francisco - Rock 'n' Roll Lover (Horror Mix)
5.Mr Cisco - Culo
6.Mr Cisco - Classics
7.Francisco - Venti Venti
8.Pigna People - Mix Off
9.Analog Fingerprints - Hall
10. Bumper - Mascara Love (Pigna People Mix)
11. Mr Cisco - Mixage

Lunar Disko

Lunar Disko presents...

Saturday February 3rd @ The Underground, Kennedys.

Adm: e8 before 12 / e10 after. Doors 11pm

Francisco (Nature / Pigna - Rome)
Andy Doyle (Lunar Disko)
Barry Donovan (Lunar Disko / Electric City)

This Saturday Lunar Disko welcomes a Roman funkster who has been setting Europe alight over the past couple of years with some fantastico 12" releases and an amazing debut LP ' Music Business' which reflects his love of all things Italo, Chicago and Detroit.

Since his first release on Pigna as Francisco back in 2003, Francesco de Bellis has won the praises of countless artists across the globe. His tracks have appeared in DJ sets by artists such as I-f, Marco Passarani, Dr. Lektroluv, Erol Alkan, and M.A.N.D.Y aswell as high profile performances across the UK, Holland, Spain, and Italy. Previously he had been producing as Mat 101 and Jollymusic. More recently Francisco has released nu-italo sounds on Dexters's Amsterdam based label Klakson, and on Ralph Lawson's 20:20 Vision label. His records never fail to rock clubs, and his DJ set this Saturday @ Lunar Disko is sure to lift the roof!

You can also check out Francisco alongside the rest of the Nature family hosting their bi-monthly radio show called 'Dimensione Jack' on RedBullMusicAcademy internet radio. Tune in at www.rbmaradio.com.

Supplying the warm up sounds to Francisco will be Lunar Disko's Barry Donovan & Andy Doyle. Check out our Top of the Pops below.....


Andy Doyle Top 5

Chris Rea – On the beach (Todd Terje edit)
Bangkok Impact – Taming the Taurus
Lowfish – Membrane Switch
Maximilian Skiba – The Fog
Koxo – Step by Step

Barry Donovan Top 5

Traxx ft. Legowelt - MTT Inversion
Photocall - Silverclouds
Peter Visti - Balearic Love
V/A - Le Chambre De La Acido Compilation Muzique
Redshape - 2084 / Ultra

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Also, we are giving away 3 double guestlist passes for this Saturday @ The Underground. To be in with a chance simply answer this Football Italia question below....

Q : What famous Serie A football club from Rome, did Paul 'Gazza' Gascoigne once play for?

Answers as always to : lunardisko@yahoo.ie