Biography

I was born in El Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz, Spain) in 1977 (September 17). I have worked as a full time teacher for more than 20 years, sometimes complementing with directive positions and other similar positions. I actually live in Granada (I moved here in 2007 and I love this place!) and I’m interested in a wide range of subjects: computers, art, films, trading, synthesizers or music! When I’m not with my profession or my family, I like to spend part of my free time listening to all kind of music and creating my own stuff. As a musician, I have mainly developed skills as composer, pianist, guitarist and musical engineer. For a long time, always as an enthusiast and aficionado, I have created a bit of music in different genres and styles: minimalism, romanticism, experimental, technical thrash metal, progressive, electronic music, neoclassical, ambient… I consider myself a rather particular musician, since I’m not interested in playing live, making bands or following a stable path, for example focus my energy in an unique style or instrument… I’ve always marched to the beat of my own drum -a very suitable expression here!- and I’ve made, with more or less success, what I’ve wanted… What I’m interested in is recording music, and this sometimes can be hard for me, especially because not always I can find the time and energy that I need to dedicate adequately to music. As the years go by, this situation is becoming more and more evident. As a consequence of all this, my relationship with my own music is complex. So, I usually intercalate periods in which I dedicate a great deal of work to music and other periods in which I do nothing. It all depends on the free time, energy and motivation that I find…

Let’s make a bit of history:

Born in El Puerto de Santa María in 1977, I had an initially self-taught music education on piano and later I graduated with national honours from the University of Cádiz in 2000 as a teacher specialised in elementary music. During previous years and around that year, I independently studied experimental music, improvisation and other topics related to musical creation, recordings a few of private demo-tapes and minor works (usually for piano). During this period my music showed a very eclectic style -prelude of what I would do in the future-, revising different genres like avant-garde, minimalism, romanticism or jazz. A few of months before to graduate, in autumn of 1999, I defined my «sporadic music», a collection of open techniques of composition (taking ideas from minimalism, experimental music and of my own too) in which the different musical elements (especially rhythm, melody, tonality, modality and structure) would be affected by a continuous process of transmutation and instability, changing constantly by means of harmonic relations, games of additions and subtractions, retrograde expositions of previous schemes, logical transformations, sudden ruptures and so on… All these ideas were deeply explored in «Ensayos sobre Música Esporádica» (EP, January 2000), my debut. Also it’s interesting to mention that the concept of «sporadic music» would be, from time to time, a partially recurrent element in my music, sometimes in a direct way (for example, in the previously mentioned EP) and sometimes in an indirect way (for example, in sections from the pieces «Lluvia de Mayo» (2000), «Jazz en Clave Mínimo Andalusí» (2002) or «The Great Old One» (2009)). I actually think that the «sporadic music» is one of the best things I’ve been able to offer in my music.

A few months later I released a single called «Lluvia de Mayo» (May 2000). In those years and as a pianist I started to stand out in creativity and improvisation, founding in 2001, with the guitarist José Luis Cabeza, «the HYPNOTICA project», a jazz-fusion duo for guitar and piano. This project would not last much, splitting-up before the end of that year but leaving some recordings («Música para una Guitarra sin Voz» EP, 2001). Next I released «Tres Piezas para Oídos Distintos» (EP, 2002), a new mini-LP exploring new concepts for me as fusion or poly-rhythmic minimalism, and, a year later, I recorded «De Luces y de Sombras» (LP, 2003), a suite in six movements for solo piano, very marked by the improvisation and which settled the main elements of my romantic style. Unfortunately, a few months later, I fell into depression because of personal problems and I decided to leave the music creation indefinitely. This was the end of my “early years”.

After more than two years of complete silence, in autumn of 2005 I began to work again in my music, but changing completely the context. In this occasion there was not minimalism, avant-garde or romanticism, but thrash metal! I started to play the electric guitar and I founded in 2006 «the CAUTIVA project», a studio “band” in which I was playing all the instruments (guitars, bass, drums programming and vocals), except for very sporadic guests. The first dedication was very discrete, but after moving to Granada and releasing a first demo/EP («Fire, Walk With Me!», 2008), I decided to work intensely in the project during 2008 and part of 2009. So, in June of that year I released «Human» (LP, 2009), an album which had a very good reception in the technical and progressive thrash metal scene. I recorded all the music by myself, with very limited means, at home, engineering and mixing by myself, and I made a lot of mistakes!, but I was then a pioneer, inside the metal music context, in the concept «bedroom musician» (a person doing everything in the recording of music, with a based on computers very limited equipment and trying to reach a professional level, everything made at home). Of course I wasn’t the only one, but in those years we were just a few in the metal scene, weird bugs. But everything was beginning and in just a couple of years all changed and it was possible to find a lot of «bedroom musicians» here and there in the metal scene. These were happy years!

In other order of things, while I was working in Cautiva’s «Human», I decided to make a deep revision of all my music released and not released in my early years and, as a result of the process, it was published in that year (2009) «A Retrospective – The Early Years: 1994-2003», an extended 3-CD compilation with more than 20 previously unreleased tracks! Rediscovering my “old” music was then really nice for me and this marked the direction that I followed in the next years…

The experiment with Cautiva was a success and for a while I was thinking about looking for musicians to form a real band, but after releasing «Human», I finally decided to stop Cautiva indefinitely and to think about new projects. I wanted to return to my old musical ideas and to give an updated perspective, releasing in September 2009 the «Tunguska» EP, a string quartet in three movements which showed a new path to follow completely different to the CAUTIVA project or the previous recordings for piano…

So, in April 2010 I finished «No More Faith», a dark and meditative album oriented to chamber music and in which I tried to make a review of various historical genres of Western music (medieval, baroque, classical, romanticism and XX century). The path finally was eclectic, because «No More Faith» collected very different ideas, from a neo-classical proposal until experimental sonorous passages…

In autumn of 2010 I began to work simultaneously in several projects, being launched in 2011 three very different to each other releases. First of all, «La Boîte» (CD-S, February 2011), soundtrack for a French animated short film. Next, in May 2011, the «Don’t Kill The Vinyl» EP, in which I made a tribute to the vinyl records, experimenting with new styles and ways of working. Among others, this album included electronic music and hip-hop! Finally, in September 2011, «The Illusionist» was released, a “ghost album” in which I constructed a false recording live, concretely a solo piano concerto “revising old and new pieces, playing new compositions especially created for the event and, finally, making a tribute to old and new composers for whom the innovation had always been one of their most important wills”. This album was presented as a live concert in New York, but in reality it was a conceptual studio album which tried to make a game with the listener: to give a few of clues to see if the listener discovered that it was a fake concert. The clues were, mainly, in the booklet and in some sentences and keywords from “my interventions to the public”. Winning the game was going to an address in Internet to discover all the illusion. «The Illusionist (live at the Red Room Auditorium in New York)» got excellent reviews and closed a cycle in my music. I was very happy with the concept and the final result.

While 2011 was a very active year for my music, 2012 would move very discreetly. After an unsuccessful attempt in summer of 2012 of working again in Cautiva (everything was awful here!), I felt tired of music production and I decided to stop indefinitely of making music. This was the end of “the eclectic years”.

After being involved with other non-musical projects, in 2014 I returned to music. Firstly I wanted to make a revision of the previous period with the 2-CD compilation «Eclecticism – A 2008-2013 Retrospective» (2014). And next I wanted to record something new for Cautiva after the failure of 2012. I recorded only two new songs, which could be heard on Cautiva’s «The Archangel Of Omega» EP (July 2015). After releasing this EP, I communicated leaving indefinitely the Cautiva project, because the strong dedication that it needed and my intention of starting a new period…

So, in 2015 I wrote about my interest of making electronic music for a long term and involving different projects. The idea was not only recording music, but moving my desire of knowledge and creativity to the electronic music, as a way of learning, to create music, to make improvisations, to explore new instruments and technics, to investigate and experiment… After working for a few of months, I published «Navigator» (LP, 2016), my first electronic album, in which I made a tribute to the classical and vintage electronic music I love (Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, Jean-Michel Jarre, Klaus Schulze and so on) and I experimented a lot with the composition based on multiple layers and the concept of “wall of sound” in an electronic context. This was the first of these new projects…

Unfortunately, after releasing «Navigator» I had little time for my music and, later, I was losing the interest, stopping the new projects I was working in and going into a hiatus. As a a way of closing a period, in December of 2017 I decided to release «Lost In Blue», an album collecting the music sporadically recorded in that year along some additional unreleased stuff rescued from the «Navigator» period. Sarcastically, in that 2017 I achieved one of my greatest musical ambitions for a long time: to have a large and dedicated room for my home studio! The Winter Lounge Studio was born!, place in which I continue working in music from time to time…

In the period 2018-2020 my participation with the music was mostly discreet, because a strong lack of time. Anyway, I released some additional electronic music, exploring concepts and techniques related to «Navigator» but giving an increased role to ambient music. This was the case of two brothers EPs: «Spirit» (released in May 2019) and «The Dream» (May 2020).

After a silence of more than a year, in spring of 2022 I finished a new song for Cautiva, releasing the single «I Am» (April 2022) and closing definitely forever my project of technical and progressive thrash metal which I started in 2006. So, a cycle in my music was again closed…

During the rest of 2022 I was releasing some compilations, making a revision of all my musical stuff. Of these compilations, the most interesting was an extended 4-LP compilation titled «Elements – A Comprehensive Introduction To Jose Travieso (1994-2022)» (November 2022), divided in 4 discs/parts (Earth, Water, Fire and Air) and with all the music remastered. With these compilations I closed definitely all connection with all the previous music that I was creating during the past decades. So, 2022 wasn’t only the final closure of my project Cautiva, but the definitive closure concerning all the music I made in the past!

…Maybe the story should continue???