It just so happens that the same day that I discovered this duo, hours before I had discovered music journalist Yahvé M. De la Clavada, in an article in which he wrote about the importance of us being a society which listened to music in bars, of having a band playing in the background while you had a beer, a band to which you give no other credit than being the random soundtrack of that night's party, or the fact that that band might make us, in the words of Yahvé, “stare at the stage wondering where did those guys came fom and how the fuck do they sound so good”.
Well, this last thing is what happened to the one who signs this last March 29th's night in one of those concert venues in which the unyielding music scene of London stands still, scheduling concerts every weekend, giving a chance to new bands, those which have not yet surrendered to the expensive 'charm' of producers and multinational record labels, bands which burst into the dull, homogenous landscape of bands forged in videos and Facebook 'likes'. Long live those places!
At the Dublin Castle in Candem, London (which, by the way, is on its way to becoming my oracle of underground music), onstage appeared, among other bands, one of those ensembles that makes one face the show with skepticism. Because you are not quite convinced of what two guys with more cables than guitars and a PC with a sound mixer where you expected a drumset, a bass and, perhaps, a Hamond organ, can do. You are not quite convinced until they convince you.
TAMISA, which is how this ensemble that last night led me to ask myself 'the question' is called, began their concert with a game of Super Mario in a first-batch GameBoy, which already led you to proposition number one; where had they come from. When their music dropped with the 8 bits of the console, proposition number 2 came; how the fuck do the sound so good. They didn't need much time nor a second chance. Their music is an unclassifiable mixture of rock, punk, electronic dance and funk. Miguel, guitarist and vocalist of the ensemble, explains that <<after some time of soul and searching for the music we decided to do a fit-record, dance music which felt like rock>>. The style of Miguel Reis and Francisco Torres (guitar and mixes), members of TAMISA, follows the line of the no longer present La Phaze or even Apollo 440, with that endless funky guitar style à la Big Soul combined with techno and dance rhythms samples.
Despite their powerful live and the evident work which can be felt in the work of these two promising musicians, when asked about plans for recording an album they answer: <<We are recording and uploading things to Soundcloud constantly, but we think our music needs to keep maturing before we can really commit to recording an album>>.
Last night's concert can be classified, in terms of capacity, as “more than intimate”, their repertoire little more than ten songs, and even so I believe they could have allowed themselves to dedicate a song to each of the members of the audience. Truly, artists lose the best chances. But when a band has something you don't see every time a department-store bohemian goes onstage, it is all the same that the venue is not crowded supporting the band or that you haven't heard of them in your life. TAMISA, that peculiar ensemble of Portuguese origins, formed two years ago in that prodigious melting-pot which is Candem, was above the small attendance, my beer, the conversation and my skepticism.
