Toy Tonics mainstay FIMIANI talks about his origins, the roots of Italian House music and DJing in this extensive Q&A with the artist and DJ.
*Fimiani plays Toy Tonics x Hubbas Klubb x Frædag
Italians do it better! If we’re going to talk about Disco, it’s gotta be Italian and if you’re talking about a dance floor nothing can quite bring it together like an Italo Disco track. DJs and producers from the region have been lighting up dance floors and record bags since the 1970s and joining that pantheon in recent years has been Fimiani.
Starting out as B-Plan, releasing edits of forgotten gems from the region, Giuseppe Fimiani has been releasing original material under his own name since 2024. Interned in the Toy Tonics stable, his tracks, remixes and collaborations have been a staple at the German outfit ever since.
Often working behind the scenes on other artists’ work, his music is known for its organic nature where live musicians can often be found working in the rhythm sections, threading their way through modern dance floor arrangements.
Growing up just on the outskirts of Napoli, he’s a natural descendent of the history of Disco and electronic music in the region, lying close to the heart of the scene. Between his productions and Djing he bears the torch for future generations while updating the sound for a modern audience.
He comes to Jaeger for the first time as part of the Toy Tonics circus and ahead of his next visit we sent out some questions to find out more about his history, his connection to Italo Disco and more
Where are you at the moment and what are you listening to?
I’ve just returned to Milan after the summer. Right now, I’m listening to a rap track by Sottotono, one of the Italian groups that really marked my teenage years.
When I’m not in the studio or travelling to play, I like listening to music without any particular goal. No looking for references, no “I need to find something for my next set.” Just listening and letting myself be surprised.
Tell me about your musical awakening. What was your earliest musical experience and what influenced you on your path towards a career in music?
My musical education started very early, mainly through the radio and the records I listened to at home. I grew up between Ischia and Naples, in an environment where music played a very important role, also socially.
I think the real turning point was discovering dance music and realizing that there was an entire world behind a record: the DJ, the club, the crowd, the selection of records and, above all, the ability of music to create a collective energy. From that moment, I wanted to understand not only how to listen to music, but how it actually worked. I wanted to learn how to select records, put them together, understand how to use a turntable and a mixer and, most importantly, how to build an atmosphere that could carry a dancefloor.
Later on, I got into production and started studying what was really happening inside a track: why a certain bassline worked with a particular drum pattern, why a breakdown could make a dancefloor explode, how instruments could interact with each other and how all these elements could live together inside a groove.
And, of course, how I could take all of that and turn it into something of my own.
DJing came first, right?
Absolutely. DJing came long before production. It was my way of learning music. Mixing taught me how to understand groove, structure and the dynamics of a dancefloor, and above all, how to build a dancefloor.
The years I spent doing the groundwork as a resident DJ in different situations were fundamental. During the summer season, from May to September, I was playing in clubs almost four nights a week, and I was resident at two venues. I was always doing the warm-up. I would start with an empty club and slowly build the dancefloor, creating the right mood for the DJ coming on after me.
For me, that experience was gold. I really recommend that every DJ starting out goes through that kind of apprenticeship. That’s where you learn. You build experience, develop your instincts and acquire a sensitivity that will stay with you in every situation later on.
Being in front of a crowd every week teaches you things that no manual ever could. You learn how to read people, when to push, when to leave space and when it’s time to completely change direction.
Unfortunately, these days I see a lot of young DJs who don’t want to go through that process and already see themselves as “peak-time DJs.” Or they get booked for a warm-up and don’t respect the moment: they play nothing but bangers, and then we’re left having to reset the room and rebuild the right mood in a very short time.
Guys, fewer bangers and stories, more quality! ;)
What were some of the first records you were buying and playing, and where were you playing at the beginning?
At first, I used the records I found at home, especially from my mother’s collection, or records I found in the DJ booth.
Yes, because in the early 2000s, clubs would actually buy vinyl themselves. They had their own music selection available for their resident DJs, and I also learned by listening to and playing the records I found there. Then I started listening to recorded DJ sets on cassette from DJs who were coming to Naples for the first time with Angels of Love: Kenny Dope, Vega, Roger Sanchez, Deep Dish, Erick Morillo, Frankie Knuckles, Hector Romero, Claudio Coccoluto and many others.
At that point, my whole perspective on music changed.
From the Italian Riviera, I would also get cassettes from many of the Italian DJs who were part of the scene at the time: DJ Ralf, Claudio di Rocco, Marco Trani, Lele Sacchi, Massimino Lippoli, Federica Babydoll and more. I became obsessed with tracking down the records I heard in those mixes. I wanted to know the titles, the samples, the artists and, most importantly, where I could buy them.
And believe me, it wasn’t easy: there was no Shazam. Our Shazam was our trusted record dealer! :D You had to build a relationship with them and get them to put one of the few copies aside for you when the record finally came in.
As I said before, I started out playing local parties and then moved into the smaller clubs on my island, doing a lot of groundwork as a resident. Those experiences really taught me how a dancefloor and a club work, and how important the direct relationship between a DJ and the crowd is.
It’s obviously not difficult to draw an association with Italo Disco, especially since you grew up near Naples. How much did it influence your musical development?
Italo Disco is definitely an important part of my musical background, but it was never my only or main source of inspiration.
Growing up between Ischia and Naples meant being surrounded by a very particular musical culture, where Italian subcultures, funk, disco, African funk, tribal sounds, soul vibes and Italo Disco eventually merged with house music, creating a really unique sound. The presence of the NATO base in Naples also played an important role. American import records would arrive there much earlier than they were easily available elsewhere.
For a curious kid like me, it was basically a playground.
All of this also pushed me towards production. I started wondering what was actually happening inside those records: how they were built, how the drums and bass worked, how instruments were being used, how a melody could become a hook and, above all, how all these elements could coexist within a groove.
I think that’s where my real curiosity about production began.
Are there still some unearthed gems in that genre, or has it been exhausted at this point?
Absolutely. There are still gems out there. I think it’s practically an inexhaustible genre, especially once you move beyond the most well-known titles. I’m still discovering records and productions I’ve never heard before. But from my point of view, the most interesting part today isn’t just finding the “rare record.” It’s understanding what we can take from that musical culture, those sounds and that sensibility, and transform into something new.
How has your DJing evolved since then?
It has changed enormously, mainly because the way we access music has changed.
When I started, research was a huge part of the job. Buying a record meant finding it, hunting it down, investing your savings in it and sometimes waiting weeks before you could finally get your hands on it. Vinyl wasn’t accessible to everyone, and building a good collection required time, passion and a lot of research.
Today, we basically have the whole history of recorded music at our fingertips, and that’s incredible. Technology has made DJing much faster, more accessible and more flexible. I’m definitely someone who embraces technology and tries to integrate it into the way I work. But I think you have to be careful not to let technology consume you.
So yes, DJing has definitely changed. Whether it has changed for better or worse depends on your point of view. In some ways it has become worse, in others it has definitely improved. What I can say is that there’s much less romanticism. And maybe less respect and passion for the music too. More and more, I feel that the music itself is taking a back seat to the show. At the same time, though, there are possibilities today that were simply unimaginable when I started.
As BPlan, you started out making edits of classics. Was that your introduction to production, and what was the idea behind those edits?
Yes. With BPlan, my first approach to production was very sample-based. I would start with disco and soul samples, often at much lower BPMs, and build a completely different track around them.
I’ve always loved the idea of giving a sound or a song a new life, taking it somewhere completely different. Later, I also started making simpler edits, what I would call “DJ edits”: I’d take a track I loved and add a more modern groove so I could play it in my DJ sets, while always trying to respect the original.
I was never the kind of guy who would just throw a random drum beat over a record. The groove has to work and it has to make musical sense. I later made many of these edits available as free downloads. At the beginning, I wasn’t really thinking about a career as a producer. Production was mainly a tool for my DJing. Then, little by little, I realized that the same approach could become a language of my own.
Going from BPlan to Fimiani, what was the key motivation behind developing your own sound as an artist?
The move to Fimiani came from the need to build a real artistic identity.
With BPlan, I was still very connected to the idea of editing and reinterpreting existing material. With Fimiani, I wanted to start from the same musical culture, but without needing an existing track as a starting point. I wanted to create everything from scratch: melodies, grooves, basslines and arrangements. And I wanted to do it by involving musicians and singers, so that every element could have its own identity.
Basically, I wanted to take everything I had learned as a DJ and producer and turn it into a universe that people could recognize as FIMIANI.
As Fimiani, you’re carrying forward a certain Italo tradition while updating it for the contemporary dancefloor. What’s the core of your sound?
I’d say groove, melody and warmth. I’m very interested in the relationship between organic instruments and electronic production. I want my records to have club energy, but at the same time something human, physical and maybe even a little imperfect — because that’s often what makes a record unique.
There’s definitely a strong Italian and Mediterranean component, but also a lot of influences from the Global South: African grooves, South American rhythms, house music, disco and funk.
It’s a kind of melting pot. A bella mezcla! :D
I don’t think too much in terms of “this is Italo,” “this is house,” “this is Afro.” I take what I love and try to make it coexist within the same ecosystem.
There’s an organic quality to your music and, from what I understand, you always try to incorporate some kind of live element. Tell us about your creative process in the studio.
I almost always start with the groove. I build a rhythm section, a bassline and a very simple structure, and then I start adding elements. That’s where I like to bring musicians into the process: a guitarist, bassist, percussionist, pianist, singer or anyone else who can bring something real into the track.
For me, it can’t simply be “a musician playing over an electronic production.” What they play has to become part of the track, its groove, its organic quality and, ultimately, the FIMIANI ecosystem. They have to feel like they’re part of the project too. Fortunately, after years of working this way, I’ve built a great team of collaborators. When we get into the studio, everything feels very natural — and most importantly, we have fun making music together.
What’s the biggest challenge in combining these live elements with sequenced electronic components, and how do you make them sound so natural?
The biggest challenge is keeping everything under control without losing the natural feel. A musician plays differently from a machine: there are micro-variations, timing, dynamics and little imperfections. For me, those imperfections are often the most interesting part. The trick is not trying to correct everything or warp everything to perfection.
You have to understand which imperfections give the record life and which ones simply make it sound out of focus. Once you find that balance, the electronic and live elements stop feeling like two different worlds and simply become part of the same groove.
Another fundamental part is the mix. Over time, I’ve also developed the right sound and my own way of mixing, so that all the live and electronic elements can coexist naturally
Toy Tonics has been the exclusive home for your releases as Fimiani. How did you first get involved with the label?
Toy Tonics came into my life at a very important moment in my journey, around 2017. I had started developing the sound that I now recognize as Fimiani, and I felt I needed a home that could really understand its identity.
The relationship initially started through my BPlan edits, and then we began building the FIMIANI project together. With Mathis, aka Kapote, everything happened very naturally. We met in Ischia in 2017, when I invited him to play an open-air party, and from there we started building this journey together.
What’s it like working with Toy Tonics, and what keeps you coming back to them?
Everything with them feels very spontaneous because I don’t feel a real distance between the artist’s vision and the label’s vision. There’s a strong musical connection, an ongoing dialogue and a real attention to the music, while at the same time they give me the space I need to develop my own identity. And above all, we share a certain idea of dance music: it can be fun and accessible, but still have personality, depth, research and culture.
Is this your first time at Jaeger, and your first time playing in Oslo? How will that affect what you pack in your record bag?
Yes, this will be my first time at Jaeger and also my first time playing in Oslo. Unfortunately, the previous times, because of different events and some unexpected circumstances, I never managed to make it.
So this time I’m really curious to discover the crowd and the club for the first time, and to see where we can take the dancefloor together.
Anything new or unheard you’re looking forward to playing here?
Yes. I’m working on several original tracks and a few remixes, and they’ll definitely be coming with me. I’ll be testing them in my set…
Shhh, I can’t say too much! :D
See you on the dancefloor.
Lastly, please play us out with a song…
I’ll leave you with one of the tracks that represents my Neapolitan roots: