Paul Fonfara is a composer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and all around nice guy, who keeps himself pretty damn busy. While he writes all sorts of music and plays a ton of instruments, his songs carry a unifying thread of the cinematic - pulling sounds from spaghetti westerns, Balkan folk, film noire spy jazz, modern chamber music, shoegaze rock and gutter blues. Think Ennio Morricone drinking cheap boxed wine. Eric Satie with a splinter in his big toe. Andrew Bird in an episode of Twin Peaks. Songs for the underdogs. Heart felt, cathartic with a tinge of the absurd.
Way back in the day while living in Denver, Paul was a member of Devotchka, Woven Hand/16 Horsepower, the Denver Gentlemen and began a long writing and touring relationship with alt country stalwart Jim White. When Paul moved to Minneapolis in 2005, he was lucky to discover many a kindred soul, joining local favorites The Spaghetti Western String Company, Brass Messengers, Bookhouse, and plays scores for silent films with Dreamland Faces and the Poor Nobodys. All the while, he fronted his own band Painted Saints, which has released 3 albums and toured throughout the US, Canada and Europe. In the last couple of years, Paul veered more towards formal composition, film scoring, and time spent in the studio. He has been awarded 4 MN State Arts Board grants for various composition projects. This allowed him in 2016 to record an album of chamber music and accompanying films under the moniker the Ipsifendus Orchestra, which saw a 4 star review in Downbeat Magazine and was performed alongside the films at the Square Lake Festival. In 2018 he recorded a collection of songs, It Means a Terrible Much, based on books that have won MN Book Awards. Over the pandemic, a grant allowed him to start a 12-piece Balkan styled brass band, Mustard’s Mechanical Orchestra, to play his tunes (album in the works). Another grant made it possible in 2023 to compose and perform an 8 movement suite for chamber orcehstra (album in the works). Paul has seen commissions from the Kolher Art Museum and the Mojave Project to perform a score to 1923’s Greed in Death Valley. In some more recent collaborations, he produced and arranged the album of Venezuelan folk songs, Despechada, with Ane Diaz and Jim White that was voted as the best new Latin release on Billboard in June of 2023. Working along side film scoring luminary West Thordson, Paul has co-scored documentaries for Netflix, Hulu, and a full theatrical feature Queen of Bones. He has also written music for Modern Love, the re-release of Northern Exposure and had his music placed in bad television worldwide.
Paul is ridiculously lucky to have so many fine musical compatriots, but it is difficult to get them all in the same at the same time. So, he often performs solo, playing guitars, clarinet, piano, whistles, and singing mildly in tune.
