Biography
Balla first appeared on the Optimus 2000:we'vebeenwatchingyou collection, with his track "Âmago", in 2000 (alongside other bands such as Plástica and Atomic Bees). [6] His eponymous first album of original songs was released in the same year, and was described as "crossing the atmosphere of accessible Portuguese music, with dance rhythms and pop sounds, finally connected through cut-and-paste, first experimented upon in the universe of hip-hop. The result is essentially a pop sound, yet different from that presented by previous efforts, where the results were rougher. In Balla, Armando Teixeira tried to recreate, in his style, the musical ambience of the 1960s and the 1970s." [7]
In 2003 Balla released his second full-length, entitled Le Jeu, where the humour of the persona is rendered more clearly. A review described the album as "it's pop, it's 'chanson française', it's eroticism, it's electronica and everything else that a disc of such complex songs can suggest. Firstly, because it's based on erotic film soundtracks from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and then because it has songs, about everything and about nothing... Besides all this, Armando Teixeira continues to hold a certain relish for humor, symbolism and daydreaming." [8] The cover of Le Jeu is possibly a reference to the Nathaniel Merriweather (aka Dan The Automator) project Lovage (band), and his album Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By, which is in itself a pastiche of Serge Gainsbourg's No. 2 album. [8]
A Grande Mentira [The Big Lie], was released in 2006. Balla not only composed but also recorded, mixed and produced the entire album. The album includes a cover of "Oub`lá" by Mão Morta. Resumo (2000–2008) (Chiado Records/Sony BMG), released in 2008, is a collection of works from his first three albums. [9] [10]
Besides live touring regularly, Balla has played at several large Portuguese music festivals, including Festival Serra da Estrela 2007, [11] headlining on the "Palco Planeta Sudoeste" stage at Festival Sudoeste in 2007 (alongside Datarock and Bonde do Rolê) and Festival Alive!07 in Oeiras alongside the Smashing Pumpkins and The White Stripes [12] [13] Balla has also contributed a duet with Paulo Gonzo to the "Movimento UPA", alongside Camané, JP Simões and Mariza, which campaigns to combat against discrimination toward people with mental illness. [14] [15]
Portuguese music includes many different styles and genres, as a result of its history. These can be broadly divided into classical music, traditional/folk music and popular music and all of them have produced internationally successful acts, with the country seeing a recent expansion in musical styles, especially in popular music.
Luiz Gonzaga do Nascimento was a Brazilian singer, songwriter, musician and poet and one of the most influential figures of Brazilian popular music in the twentieth century. He has been credited with having presented the rich universe of Northeastern musical genres to all of Brazil, having popularized the musical genre baião and has been called a "revolutionary" by Antônio Carlos Jobim. According to Caetano Veloso, he was the first significant cultural event with mass appeal in Brazil. Luiz Gonzaga received the Shell prize for Brazilian Popular Music in 1984 and was only the fourth artist to receive this prize after Pixinguinha, Antônio Carlos Jobim and Dorival Caymmi. The Luiz Gonzaga Dam was named in his honor.
Rock music and its subgenres are very popular in Portugal. The history of the Portuguese rock music scene spans several decades.
Da Weasel are a Portuguese hip hop/rock band from Almada, fronted by MCs Pacman and Virgul. They are one of the oldest hip-hop projects in Portugal, having been formed in 1993 and terminated in 2010, and known for being a full session band, instead of relying on a DJ and samples. The band announced their reunion in 2019. Their music uses elements from hard rock, pop and ska.
Armando Teixeira is a Portuguese musician and record producer. He has worked with a variety of projects within a wide scope of genres.
Mão Morta is a Portuguese avant-garde rock band that started its activities in 1985 in Braga. The group's name means "dead hand", based on a traditional Portuguese nursery rhyme. They are generally considered to be one of the most important bands in the Portuguese rock scene and have since reached a cult status. Since the start of their career, their live concerts became famous for their intensity and dark mood, due to their signature alternative rock sound and the performance of vocalist Adolfo Luxúria Canibal, known for occasional onstage theatrics and his gravelly voice, half-sung, half-spoken singing style. Mão Morta's music is difficult to categorize as they incorporate a variety of genres; from punk rock, metal, to industrial and experimental. Their sound, combined with Adolfo's lyrics, reflects urban violence, a human search for pleasure, freedom and a critique of contemporary consumerist society, often with sarcastic humour.
The Sudoeste Festival, currently named MEO Sudoeste for sponsorship reasons, is a music festival that takes places annually since 1997, in August, in Odemira, in the southwest of Portugal. It is organized by live entertainment company Música no Coração and is currently sponsored by the Portuguese telecommunications company MEO.
Jacek Krenz, born in 1948 in Poznań, Poland, is an academic architect and painter. He is a professor at Gdańsk University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture, taught also at University of Fine Arts in Poznań – both in Poland – and at Universidade da Beira Interior in Covilhã, Portugal. Charter member of The Polish Watercolour Society. Instructor of Urban Sketchers
Spartak! were a musical collective from Alcobaça, Portugal. Although Alcobaça is relatively small, it maintains a music scene including Loto, The Gift and Samuel Jerónimo. Spartak's debut EP Spartak! One was produced by Ricardo Coelho of Loto.
NOS Alive is an annual music and arts festival held in the Algés riverside, close to Lisbon, in Portugal. It is organized since 2007 by the Portuguese live entertainment company Everything is New. Its naming sponsor is telecommunications company NOS.
Bizarra Locomotiva is a Portuguese industrial metal band. Its history dates back to 1993, when Armando Teixeira and Rui Sidónio (vocals) started a band to participate in Modern Music Competition of the city of Lisbon.
Paulo Jorge do Carmo Brissos is a Portuguese singer.
Filipe Miranda Cunha Pinto known as Filipe Pinto is a Portuguese singer that won season 3 of the Portuguese reality television music competition series Ídolos in 2010. He won the 2013 MTV Europe Music Award for the Best Portuguese Act.
Best Youth is a Portuguese band from Porto, whose sound could be described as clash between electronic indie rock and dream pop, formed by Ed Rocha Gonçalves and Catarina Salinas. In 2011 their self-released by Optimus Discos, the first EP, "Winterlies", with the first single "Hang Out" has seen airplay in all the major national radio stations and topped the chart of Antena 3 for 3 weeks, leading them to make its presence in the most important festivals of the specialty, such as Optimus Alive!, Optimus Primavera Sound, Paredes de Coura, among others.
Diogo Piçarra is a Portuguese singer. He won the fifth season of the Portuguese version of Pop Idol in 2012.
Tarik Ali Mishlawi, known by his stage name Mishlawi, is an American hip-hop performing artist, who grew up in Portugal. Dubbed as "Portuguese Hip Hop's revelation" by La Vanguardia, and commonly referred to as a "TransAtlantic talent", Mishlawi started his musical career on YouTube, before he was discovered by Richie Campbell and subsequently signed to Bridgetown Records, and later by Universal music and Island records.
Matias Damásio is an Angolan musician, singer and songwriter in popular music, romantic music and in Kizomba. He also enjoys great popularity in Portugal through his albums Por amor that reached number 4 in Portuguese Albums Chart in 2016 and Augusta that peaked the albums chart in Portugal in 2018.
TV Sudoeste, virtual channel 5, is a TV Globo-affiliated television station licensed to Vitória da Conquista, Bahia, Brazil. Owned by Rede Bahia, TV Sudoeste is part of Rede Bahia de Televisão, a statewide television network composed of another five TV stations. TV Sudoeste's studios are located on Fonsecas's Street, in the center of Vitória da Conquista, and its transmitter is located at Santa Ana Street, in the Nossa Senhora Aparecida District.
Super Bock Super Rock is a music festival in Portugal, organized yearly since 1995. The festival has been held in various places throughout the years.
NOS Alive is a music and arts festival that takes place in Algés, in the municipality of Oeiras, Portugal, since 2007.
