by Mateus Starling

I was born In Brazil and I started playing rock when I was 12 and with 16 years of age I was a professional player. Brazilian music and other styles became part of my music life due the fact that to be a professional musician in Brazil you need to play a bit of everything.

In 2005 I got a scholarship to attend Berklee college of music in Boston and there I spent almost 4 years of my life. I only started working in my first album (Kairos) when I was in my last year at Berklee. It was in 2008. I had a conception in my mind that was to bring free jazz to my rock background and my Brazilian root.

Kairos is a cd with free forms and atonal approach. Recorded live with a quartet, the idea was to capture the magic of playing together, when each musician is reacting to the improviser, like the old school recording sections.

So, Kairos open many doors worldwide and 2011 was the right moment to bring a new material. Different from Kairos, where the whole cd was recorded in the USA, I composed and recorded my second cd Free Fusion in Brazil and with Brazilians musicians. I used the same concept of freedom in the improvisation, almost no forms and no chord changes for soloing but now I explored more drive in the guitar and I used more Brazilian elements in the compositions.

Compositional I was influenced by Arnold Shoenberg and his dodecaphonist approach and off course by all the things that I heard in my life, but Shoenberg was I breakthrough composer in my life and in many of my compositions I used the approach of using 12 notes, sometimes not using the same rules, but using the concept to bring something more acid to the sound.

The whole cd was recorded with a quartet, guitar, tenor sax, bass and drums. The idea to use the saxophone was really important to double the melodies. I use lots of dissonance and atonal ideas but when I double the melodies with the saxophone it became stronger and easier to understand the melody. My set up was a fender telecaster guitar, Vox Ac15 amp, BB pre amp plus, digitech sound factory pedal and a POD x3.

For more about Mateus and his music, visit:
MateusStarling.com.br