Where are you based?
Bath, UK.
Where do you work? What do you do?
My work splits into these three music fields:
Music Curation, as an in-demand music consultant working alongside a team that creates musical identities for brands in Brazil and the UK. I also run a background music service for Brazilian businesses, Solar Music.
Music Journalist and Writer, writing music articles at the Brazilian Union of Composers magazine/website, at my newsletter Distante and for the Brazilian band Os Paralamas do Sucesso;
Finally, I’m a Label Assistant at Reel People Music, an English record label. I also founded my record label in Brazil, where I was born. It’s called Pequeno Imprevisto, and we’ve released mainly Brazilian and world music.
What are you listening to?
I’m currently listening to many South American contemporary indie pop due to a music curation job for an American luxury brand. I have run into many fantastic artists – and I’m just talking about songs that came out in 2023. I’ve compiled a playlist with 15 gems I discovered during this research and will release it via my newsletter, Distante.
How do you discover new music?
Many of my discoveries come from listening to the radio online. The French radio station FIP is probably my favourite, alongside Rádio USP in Brazil and many others. I also do Spotify – I like to find playlists curated by people or labels I like. Bandcamp is a fantastic source, too. Finally, movie soundtracks: the best music discoveries I have made so far came from cinema.
What formats do you usually listen to? LP, CD, Cassette, Digital, Streaming Services? Why?
I was born in 1985, so first, I learned to listen to music on LP and then got into the CD in the 90s. I used to listen to music via these formats at my Brazilian home before I moved to England in 2020. Now, I go between vinyl and digital.
“We find music so easily nowadays. But there are consequences. One: so much music is coming out daily – 100k tracks each 24 hours. It’s a non-human scale. So, of course, it will lead to frustration for everybody involved, especially artists and their audiences.”
Where do you do most of your music listening?
I listen to music from Monday to Friday, eight hours a day, due to my work as a music curator and label manager. I plug in my vinyl record player on weekends to listen to my favourite artists.
When I’m out of home… well, as a teenager, I used to carry a portable CD player (Sony’s Discman!) and many batteries so I could listen to music anywhere I was, at any time. I just thought music was the best way to experience life. I hated it when I had an issue with the Discman, and life suddenly had no soundtrack. Now, I do the same thing, except I just need a portable charger and a wired headphone. My favourite place to do my music is on a long bus journey, looking out the window.
How do you find and listen to pre-release music?
Mostly, I listen to my record label releases or Reel People’s. Also, sometimes a friend or an artist is about to release new music and asks me for an opinion.
What are your frustrations with listening to music digitally? Any benefits?
The benefit is the comfort. We find music so easily nowadays. But there are consequences. One: so much music is coming out daily – the last figure I heard is 100k tracks each 24 hours. It’s a non-human scale. So, of course, it will lead to frustration for everybody involved, especially artists and their audiences.
Another thing is that listening to music digitally is not a collective experience most of the time. I miss listening to music with my friends and family without having to do something else simultaneously (drive, cook, talk, etc).
How do you keep track of everything you are listening to?
I think I solved this problem by creating a single playlist on Spotify with all the best tracks I discovered there. When the music is not on Spotify, I keep a Word file where I write down names and links. But when a song really gets me, I just keep it in my mind.
Do you tip other people off to new music? How?
All the time! I’m that guy who always says to someone, “You know, I think you gonna like this artist called…”. But I do this professionally via my newsletter, Distante, by delivering two fresh playlists every month with some of the beauties I run due to my music curation work.
Anything you want to “promote”?
My newsletter Distante! You should sign up for many reasons: you will receive the two monthly playlists I mentioned above + some stories about music and its intersection with immigration, bilingualism and other topics. And it’s free. And there is more exciting news coming soon!
