João Sousa began promoting his music at a very young age. Younger than one might imagine, especially when you consider how much he has already achieved, how long he has been doing it, and that he is now approaching nearly two decades in the business. He is prolific and generous, given the way he shares his music on digital platforms and releases tracks at unexpected moments, driven by a need to express his inspiration and a desire to feel alive. João’s music as Coelho Radioactivo feels like a battle against something.
Anti-Ontem, the album he is set to present at Zé dos Bois, was conceived over the course of a decade. During that decade, he released other albums and presented other songs, but the idea behind these tracks was always there, like something that would one day come together and make sense. As if the songs had a life of their own, a will of their own (well, don’t they?), searching for a group through which to speak, to exist. João Sousa wanted to give them that life; he let them settle, breathe, searching for a moment for them to meet – and meet again – with others that would be heading in the same direction. These are also songs crafted around the concept of an album, which evolved over time, whilst absorbing influences from the music he was listening to and felt compelled to follow: Grouper, Jenny Hval, Weyes Blood, Arthur Russell and Mark Hollis.
Acoustic songs haunted by sounds that exist somewhere between the mist and a solitary despair, in a mild atmosphere that makes it impossible to hear these sounds as sounds of despair. They are sounds of maturity, of a musician realising that certain ideas live beyond the present, in the certainty of continuity and the reward of time – time as the craftsman of the articulation and transformation of ideas. Coelho Radioactivo sought something absolute in the prolongation of existence, of his own, of his ideas, of his songs. And he achieved that, and something more, in this Anti-Ontem.
AS

Acoustic songs haunted by sounds that exist somewhere between the mist and a sense of despair. Nuno Loureiro is a producer, multi-instrumentalist and sound artist from Porto. His commitment to experimenting with process-based approaches means his sound is constantly evolving. He released *Lua Onus* on Superpang in 2023 and has performed internationally, both solo and with the musical projects TNL, Solar Corona, Fugly & Milteto. Notable among his collaborations are his works with Richie Culver and Pedro Huet. Alongside his musical work, he presents the monthly radio programme ‘reza clunx schemes’ on CAMP radio.