My name is Miguel Andrade and I was born in Porto, a city in the north of Portugal, in 1990. I discovered that I could make music when I was about 14 and picked up my brother’s acoustic guitar, an unwanted birthday present, that had never been played. What started out as yet another attempt to annoy my older brother, soon became a life changing decision.

As soon as I carelessly strummed the strings, I fell in love with this warm and raw sound resonating inside this wooden box. Then, I started placing my left hand fingers on the strings and plucking them. Feeling these vibrations on the tip of my fingers and knowing I was the one making that sound was one of the most empowering sensations I had ever felt.

It was a quick jump to the electric guitar and before I knew it, I was filling up a small recorder with riffs, melodies and ideas for whole songs. The lyrics came after the music and I was thrilled to be able to use the writing passion I’ve always had for this incredible greater good – music composition.

By a fluke of luck, an old friend got me in touch with a childhood friend I hadn’t seen in years that played the piano. We met at his place and after a few minutes playing around, we knew something was happening. It was the birth of my first band called Stilsent that was soon joined by a drummer and a bass player, currently two of my best friends.

Long story short, we made some songs and played some concerts but ended up splitting up. The first love doesn’t last for the most of us, and I reckon the same applies to bands. We played our hearts out and were sure we were going to conquer the world, but after a reality check, we woke from this dream and from a far distance, were able to realize that making music and playing gigs is just a part of a band’s life, and there has to be a whole lot of hard work to make things work.

A few years later, I felt the need to go back to the acoustic guitar and start to write in Portuguese. Together with a very good friend of mine, also a guitar player, we created a band called Nuvem. The composition process for this project was very different from my previous experience. We would have these very minimal and calm acoustic sessions and would start to build songs on top of very simple foundations that would quickly grow into more intricate melodies and concepts.

The result was a bunch of songs about kings, beasts and overall medieval and fantastic tales. I would say a very Portuguese approach to fantasy, a very Camões way of looking at adventure that I believe we all have. We then recorded an EP in which we both sang and played most of the instruments. The cherry on top of the cake was the sound of flutes throughout the songs played by a friend of ours that quickly became the third element of the band. Then, life happened again and our friend went to live in London and the band was forced to end even before it started.

Then came a year in my life full of changes, and with it James Crow was born, an alter ego I created to make music that was more intense and dark, a kind of music I’ve never done before. It was at this point that I discovered electronic music and its ability to distort rock’s raw reality into a slower and sexier parallel world by creating an almost surreal ambience. Although it began as a solo project, I was joined by the keyboard player from my first band and the guitar player from my second band and together we recorded a full length album.

The following year yet another sudden twist in my life and I started to look at everything from a different angle. I suppose this is what growing up means… Needless to say, the music I was making changed again. On that year’s Christmas Eve, I got sick and stayed home. On that night I composed four songs with lots of electronic elements, but somewhat very melodic and oneiric. As I always do after making a piece of music, I hear it obsessively to learn the concept it conveys. I feel the creative process must be quick and almost chaotic, and that you must allow the music to develop to wherever it wants to go. Plenty of time to understand what you were doing later on…

Because I had decided to incorporate sounds of natural elements such as water and wind blowing, and I had four songs, a number that I musically love as it always reminds me of Vivaldi’s four seasons, it became obvious that these songs were also representing a cycle of seasonal changes throughout the year. The difference was that they were clearly personifying the Anemoi, the wind gods from the Greek mythology, each represented by a cardinal direction from which their respective winds came:

Eurus: East wind – the unlucky one, bearer of warmth and rain
Boreas: North wind – the devouring one, bringer of winter and father of horses
Zephyrus: West wind – the gentlest one, life-giving wind, messenger of spring
Notos: South wind – destroyer of crops, wind of late summer and early autumn

The project was then called Aras, a mirrored representation of my muse, who will remain my best kept secret. As I live by a roundabout and my bedroom is actually round, I called the EP The Round Room. I thought it was also a good name to represent the cycle of the seasons, brought by the four winds.

A trip made by the Douro river exposed me, once again, to natural elements such as water and wind, and I felt almost compelled to compose a new song called Haunt that was released shortly after the EP.

As for now, Aras is where I’m at, and without wanting to give too much away, I can safely say that I’m currently concentrating all my efforts into creating an experience to share with everyone live.