Fabio Lugaro

Born in Savona, he inherited from the rugged Ligurian land an equal passion for sea and mountains (surpassed only by his love of cities, big ones preferably). Among his non-musical interests are London (where he lives and works), good food, AI, design, sociology and semiotics. Weaned musically from an early age on a diet of singer-songwriters and the Clash, his musical passion was probably really sparked when, in the middle of his teenage years, he discovered the Velvet Underground. From then on, curiosity - one of his defining traits - did the rest. Some time later, while still roaming up and down through genres, he developed a sudden love for krautrock, new wave, homemade electronics and weird rock. Having cut his teeth on the discographies of Faust, the Residents, Can, Captain Beefheart, Zappa and Eno, he went on to delve into Zorn, post-rock, the avant-garde, Japanese improvised music, minimalism, noise, glitch and plunderphonics. His passion for the more challenging sounds is nonetheless balanced out by healthy doses of pop, folk and Black music, from hip hop to funk, as well as an interest in the best Detroit and Berlin techno. In recent years, struck respectively by Raymond Scott's Manhattan Research, Inc., Harry Smith's Anthology and The Lowest Form Of Music, he has become obsessed with early electronics, pre-war acoustic folk and blues, and the Los Angeles Free Music Society. A CD lover recently converted to the analogue pleasures of vinyl, preferably vintage, he is a compulsive listener and buyer, nursing an unhealthy passion for box sets and, more generally, for carefully crafted packaging and informative booklets. He devours the writings of Greil Marcus, Julian Cope, Lester Bangs, Simon Reynolds, Stefano Isidoro Bianchi and David Toop. He subscribes to The Wire and Blow Up, which he considers - alongside a carefully curated selection of online sources - essential music reading of our times. He is slowly building up complete catalogues of the labels he loves most, such as Table Of The Elements, ReR, Revenant and Tzadik. He buys mostly online, but loves hunting for new releases and gems from the past in London's record shops. Rough Trade, Sound 323, Second Layer, Fopp, Sounds Of The Universe, Music And Video Exchange, Ray's Jazz Shop and Sister Ray are his favourites.