Tjak

The Tjak project sprang from the meeting of Gabriel Gomes, Pedro Sotiry, and Victor Bandeira in 2001. Since 1960, Victor Bandeira traveled through Africa, South America, Southwest Asia, and New Guinea where he gathered objects from cultures known as "primitives," which, today, are displayed at the Museum of Ethnology in Lisbon, Portugal. Along with this, Victor Bandeira also recorded songs and dances from different ethnic groups, ambiances, and wildlife, all stored at the Museum of Ethnology. In the early nineties, after a careful digitization process, these recordings are used as raw material and inspiration for the music produced and performed by Tjak. In 2008, they invited Diogo Ribeiro, a music producer, to be part of Tjak. His collaboration has added more spice to the musical content and a young spirit to the project. Their first live performance together was at Boom Festival 2008 on the Main Floor, a gathering of 4 different generations of musicians sharing their passion for music. Tjak is a performance-oriented experience. The connection between the four on stage is always changing, making the shows unpredictable and unique with invited guests and visual arts. Each element has his defined role: Pedro Sotiry, who studied classical piano from an early age, combines jazz elements with classical structures; Victor Bandeira works exclusively with his own collected and recorded sounds, processing them live; Gabriel Gomes, a pioneer electronic musician from Portugal, gives his precious inputs in the arrangements and synth modulations; Diogo Ribeiro, another pioneer in the electronic trance movement in Portugal, processes the beats in real time and in separate parts, giving him full control over the live performance. So, this is definitely not your average pre-recorded electronic live act, and each concert is a unique experience.