our artwork
TUTMONDA sound label consists of a team of three people. João Svayam (aka Nadabindu) is creates, reunites or proposes the sound content, Nuno Mangas Viegas is the person responsible for the art work and conceptualization, Francisco Morato is an amazing musician who contributes with a lot different projects. João in Arruda dos Vinhos (PT), Nuno in Olhão (PT), Francisco in Gent (BE).
Conceptualisation and Story-building: After a few general conversations about the musical object that had been sent to him, Nuno Mangas Viegas listens to the albums on a loop (stopping, moving forward, repeating, etc) until an image or concept emerges and becomes clear enough so that it can be explored through words and form a kind of micro-narrative. It is from this process of visualisation through sound that the track titles and album titles emerge. In this way, each track title becomes a chapter in the album's story. It is thus an "active listening process" where Nuno can fully express his creative and interpretative freedom.
Artwork - Making of the album covers: manual labour is a way of communicating with the truth of us. After coming up with the title of the album and conceiving a general image (not yet totally concrete), and using the materials he has at his disposal at home (old magazines, cut-outs, materials, objects), Nuno starts experimenting. Cutting, collage and mixing are common processes to all his projects. From this phase of creation, three or four concrete ideas for the cover usually emerge. These are then sent to the light box where they are photographed (with nuances) around two dozen times each. Then comes the (minimal) editing of the images, followed by the final choice for each album cover. This is how Nuno adds body to the already long and rich main process: the musical creation that precedes it.
Main creation process: The methods we have used for our creations are sometimes the subject of our own reflection. Some of our releases are music sessions recorded on studio (or live performances) and in those cases João edits the content (by himself or with other musicians or sound technicians) and sends the result (the album) to Nuno. On this cases, Nuno has the responsibility and the freedom to engage on his own creative process.
Then, there is AŬSKULTI, a project João sees as improvised on and offline collaborative project. Taking it as an example: sometimes João sends musical excerpts based on real-time composition to other musicians and they, in turn, have complete freedom to record their sound pieces over what they received. Sometimes what comes back is totally surprising and doesn't always live up to the first musician's expectations. But what comes out from there is what is truly magnificent.
Even when our releases are improvised music sessions recorded in the studio in real time, there is scope for this totally unknown territory: once recorded, Nuno receives the recordings and has the power to conceptualize, create narratives, names, images, landscapes.
Little by little we are discovering new ways of bringing together traditional sounds, experimental languages, universalist concepts and creative freedoms, which give us a lot to think about, philosophize and materialize.
And all this with very little daily time to work on this project.
You can support us through our bandcamp.