Greetings everyone, and welcome to the Community blog featuring the winner from edition 13 of Artists Wanted.
The Artists Wanted series on the Spotify Community is an ongoing project where we, the Community Music Chat Team, invite artists on the Community to share their newest releases and introduce themselves.
Today we have the opportunity to meet Terramoto, the winner of Artist Wanted edition no. 13, with their wonderful song, “Capelinhos”:
https://open.spotify.com/track/4hhbxtmZzgyJcmmpbE6LOI?si=cdd3e05a2337419d
Based in Lisbon, Portugal, Terramoto create a unique blend of dark, eclectic instrumental music that resonates with the natural phenomena of our planet Earth.
I had the chance to ask this talented band a few interview questions, so that the Spotify Community can get to know them better. You can read our conversation below:
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What inspired you to start creating music?
Nature! We're so often mesmerized by the possibility of life beyond our planet that we forget about the crazy things our planet has. There's a mantle of hot boiling magma under our feet and the ground is constantly moving. Have you seen the creepy creatures on the bottom of the ocean? Nature! That's what inspires us! In terms of music, we drink from all sorts of indigenous musical and cultural expressions.
You’ve mentioned that world music is your main genre; for those who are unfamiliar, can you elaborate on the styles of music that this genre represents?
The term World Music can be a controversial topic and we agree that it's not the best to describe any music. It's too vague and ambiguous and it basically tries to gather all the non-western music into one genre, which is impossible. Our music is also very difficult to pinpoint to a genre but we sometimes have to submit to the pre-defined choices of genres from a list and we feel "World Music" fits us the most.
You’ve also described your music as a “dark instrumental soundtrack for Nature's cataclysms, extravagances and peculiarities.” Can you tell us more about your process of creating such music that evokes elements of nature in the listener’s mind?
We started as a jam band, nothing too serious, and after some time, when we started to see a pattern in the music we were making, we felt that some of the songs sounded more like a soundtrack for something. We ended up choosing a concept that is both super interesting to us all but also broad enough to encompass the variety of music we like to play: Nature!
Your Spotify bio notes that you take great inspiration from artists such as The Budos Band, The Sorcerers, Sven Wunder, Fumaça Preta, Jungle Fire, Goat, Menahan Street Band, Antibalas, Altin Gün, Gaye Su Akyol, The Shaolin Afronauts, Black Flower, Karl Hector & The Malcouns, Meridian Brothers, Los Pirañas, Khruangbin, The Polyversal Souls, The Daktaris, Mulatu Astatke, Cochemea, and The Heliocentrics. Can you elaborate on the musical styles that these artists play, and how they influence your own music?
We think what these bands have in common is that they all sound groovy and indigenous to a particular geography at the same time. Our philosophy as a band is that semi-famous idea that "Everything is a remix" and so it makes sense for us to inspire ourselves in all these bands' work and add a dark twist to the music we make, just like some of these other bands do.
“Capelinhos,” your excellent debut single, bears the name of a volcano on the coast of Faial Island in the Azores archipelago. As you’ve told us, this volcano attracted the attention of the world in 1957, when it caused the first submarine volcanic eruption in the world to be fully monitored and properly documented throughout its activity. Can you tell us more about how this volcano in particular inspired your debut release?
As we've said, most of our songs start as jam sessions and after a song starts having a shape and narrative, we try and interpret what phenomena it could be a soundtrack to. Capelinhos is a very important volcano in Portugal because it's really the only recent volcanic event and the footage is incredible. Once we saw that footage of the beginning of the eruption, the bubbling hot ocean water, we knew that looked and sounded like the beginning of the song we had already created and we adapted that song to be a better narrative of what a submarine volcano could sound like, based on that footage.
What have been your best musical memories to date?
Definitely our jam sessions. We sometimes dive so deep into a groove that we spend almost an hour in it, in a sort of trance. Some are really memorable and eventually give shape to a song.
What is something (whether music-related or not) that you’re looking forward to?
Playing live! We have all these visual ideas that are harder for us to put in place but we know would make our live performance a lot more interesting. We want to be musically intense but also visually entertaining. So yeah, we're very much looking forward to that!
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Congrats again @lupuispis for winning edition no. 13 of Artists Wanted on the Spotify Community, and thank you for telling us more about yourself and your inspiring journey in music.
Remember that Artists Wanted is an ongoing project. If you’re an artist, feel free to send us your music in the upcoming submission thread for edition no. 14, to be posted in Discovery & Promo.
