Artist Spotlight is our regular feature introducing you to Cities and Memory artists around the world with an in-depth interview. In this edition, we introduce you to Italian musician Riccardo Fumagalli, who performs under as the figurehead, and whose musical journey has taken him from disintegrating Fisher Price cassettes to going from 0 to 100 on plugins.

For several decades I played bass in bands, I started in the 90s and worked my way through the rise of stoner rock and wrapped it up in an electroclash band. The band activity gradually waned until, during the pandemic, I started working with synths, both hardware and software.

I found it very liberating, being able to produce music without necessarily relying on other people or regularly visiting a mildewy rehearsal room. I started with limited tools, and even more limited skills, so I immediately integrated field recordings into my compositions to create richer sound palettes. All this lead to development of my own project, the figurehead, mostly producing dark, ambient electronic music.

Other than regularly collaborating with Cities and Memory I have a project with a friend in London. It’s called Some Kind of Menace and it’s going to be amazing, but I can’t reveal anything until our first EP release in early 2026.

The interview continues below ⬇️, and this map collects together all of Riccardo’s contributions to Cities and Memory: 

Where I live now the main sound is the rustling of autumn leaves. It’s so quiet you can distinctly hear each of them hitting the ground. I have been here for a short while and I’m leaving soon so I feel like I should mention two sounds that, for me, represent the two cities where I spent most of my adult life: the tram echoing between the tall buildings in Milan, and the 390 bus that used to stop right in front of my window in London.

My first memories are of a cassette I played until it disintegrated on my Fisher Price (the beige/brown one, anyone who lived the 80s would probably remember).

I was then obsessed with a sound at the beginning of a song by Queen, I would have figured out later it was Deacon’s bass line. But what kicked the music making off was hearing Smells Like Teen Spirit at the radio. It was 1991, and now I feel old.

I should probably say that what I love the most is the gift of expressing myself in a way that would not be possible otherwise.

It’s true, but what I love the most is actually how playing makes me feel whole. One hour session is enough to make me sleep better at night.

The answer is always: the latest piece of music I released as the figurehead. Anytime I make something new I’m a bit less proud of all the previous stuff.

At the time of writing this I’d suggest you to listen to a piece called item IV (I need to find a better title), which I’m planning to pair in a mini release together with the Boros collection track I wrote for Cities and Memory.

I’m very proud of my latest contribution, called They Deconstruct, reimagining the sound installation by Eliza Douglas, at the Boros Collection bunker in Berlin.

I’ve got a few on rotation now. Two albums I’m particularly enjoying are A soft and gatherable star, by Jabu, and Friend, by james K. Both sound like a modern version of a 90s band, they sound fresh and real and I’d love to see them live.

Loraine James is one of the best living musicians not enough people talk about, with her Whatever the Weather project is redefining what ambient music is like.

Lastly, not because I ran out of artists but because I don’t want abuse of anyone’s patience, Heavenly Spheres by Penelope Trappes. The way she uses noises as instruments and instruments as noises, and deconstructs the typical song architecture is something that amazes me each time I listen to that album.

I like the sound of rain pattering against my window. I’m the kind of guy that, when that happens on a dark November evening, plays The Same Deep Water As You by the Cure. Sorry.

When I started I went from 0 to 100 plugins in a couple of weeks. Then I started buying hardware and fortunately my budget stopped me from filling my studio with stuff. Then I started cutting down and optimising and now I only use a dozen of plugins and a solid hardware setup.

A 88-keys piano is where everything usually starts, it also control all the rest via MIDI. Novation Circuit is where I get the drums going, or I sequence the lines for my two Korg Volcas: Keys and FM. My main synth is an Arturia Microfreak, definitely the best purchase, routing via the versatile Zoom ms-70cdr. This duo is so good I can basically do anything with it: bass, pads, leads.

Then I have a chaos section where I plug the slightly modded Casio SA-8, the unpredictable Mute Synth II, or the ridiculous Otamatone into a Korg NTS-1. I find this setup great for quickly drafting up a track, and gradually add whatever is needed.

I have some ideas to optimise even further, ideally the objective is to have everything ready to go by just switching the mains on, without having to plug or unplug any cables.

I wrapped up all the ongoing figurehead projects last week, so I can focus on the Flow project, here for Cities and Memory.

In secret I’m working on the Some Kind of Menace project, we have an EP almost ready, a dozen of other songs, a solid storytelling behind it and a content marketing campaign that is, let’s say, unconventional. I know I said, few questions back, that I was not allowed to reveal anything about this project but usually people never read all the way to the end, right?