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 this with directive roles and other similar positions. I currently 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, reading, trading, synthesizers, and of course, music!

When I’m not focused on my profession or my family, I like to spend part of my free time listening to all kinds of music and, for a few decades, I was also creating my own. As a musician, I mainly developed skills as a composer, arranger, pianist, guitarist and sound engineer. For a long time -always as an enthusiast and amateur- I created music in different genres and styles: minimalism, romanticism, experimental, technical thrash metal, progressive, electronic, neoclassical, ambient… More or less all kinds of styles, until I stopped my activity in 2025.

I have always considered myself a rather particular musician, since I was never interested in playing live, forming bands or following a fixed path (for example, focusing my energy on a single style or instrument). I always marched to the beat of my own drum (a very fitting expression here!) and I did what I wanted, with more or less success (definitely less success than more!). What truly interested me during my years of musical activity was creating new and complex music. That could be difficult at times, especially because I didn’t always find the time, energy and motivation I needed to dedicate myself properly to it. As a result, my relationship with my own music became complex during the last decade, alternating between periods of intense work and other periods when I did nothing at all. Finally, in the summer of 2025, with more than 100 pieces in my catalogue, I decided to retire from music creation in order to start new projects and open new paths in my life.

José Travieso – August 2025

Born in El Puerto de Santa María (Spain) 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. In the years leading up to that, I independently studied experimental music, improvisation and other fields related to musical creation, recording a few private demo tapes and minor works (usually for piano). During this period, my music displayed a very eclectic style —a prelude to what I would do later—,revisiting different genres such as avant-garde, minimalism, romanticism or jazz.

A few months before graduating, in autumn 1999, I defined my concept of “sporadic music”: a collection of compositional open techniques (drawing on minimalism, experimental music and my own ideas) in which the different musical element (especially rhythm, melody, tonality, modality, and structure) were subjected to a continuous process of transmutation and instability, constantly changing through harmonic relations, games of additions and subtractions, retrograde expositions of previous schemes, logical transformations, sudden ruptures, and so on. All these ideas were fully explored in «Ensayos sobre Música Esporádica» (EP, January 2000), my debut. It is also worth mentioning that the concept of “sporadic music” would remain, from time to time, a partially recurrent element in my music, sometimes in a direct way (as in the aforementioned EP), and sometimes in an indirect way (as in sections of pieces such as «Lluvia de Mayo» (2000), «Jazz en Clave Mínimo Andalusí» (2002) or «The Great Old One» (2009)). I still believe that “sporadic music” is one of the best things I have contributed to my musical output.

A few months after the EP «Ensayos sobre Música Esporádica» I released a single called «Lluvia de Mayo» (May 2000). Around those years, as a pianist, I began to stand out for creativity and improvisation, and in 2001, together with guitarist José L. Cabeza, I founded «the HYPNOTICA project», a jazz-fusion duo for guitar and piano. The project did not last long, splitting up before the end of that same year but leaving behind some recordings («Música para una Guitarra sin Voz» EP, 2001). Next I released «Tres Piezas para Oídos Distintos» (EP, 2002), a new mini-LP in which I explored concepts that were new to me, such as experimental-fusion and poly-rhythmic minimalism. A year later, I recorded «De Luces y de Sombras» (LP, 2003), a six-movement suite for solo piano, strongly marked by improvisation and which consolidated the main elements of my romantic style. Unfortunately, just a few months later, I fell into depression due to personal problems and decided to abandon musical creation indefinitely. This marked the end of my “early years”.

After more than two years of complete silence, in autumn 2005 I began working on music again, but in a completely different context. This time there was no minimalism, avant-garde or romanticism, but thrash metal! I started playing electric guitar and in 2006 I founded «the CAUTIVA project», a studio “band” in which I was playing all the instruments (guitars, bass, drum programming and vocals), except for a few very occasional guests. At first my dedication was rather modest, but after moving to Granada and releasing a first demo/EP («Fire, Walk With Me!», 2008), I decided to work intensely on the project during 2008 and part of 2009. So, in June of that year I released «Human» (LP, 2009), an album that was very well received within the technical and progressive thrash metal scene. I recorded all the music myself, with very limited resources, at home, engineering and mixing it on my own, and I made a lot of mistakes! But within the metal context I was then something of a pioneer of the “bedroom musician” concept: a person doing everything in the recording process with a computer-based, very limited setup, trying to reach a professional level entirely from home. Of course I wasn’t the only one, but back then in the metal scene we were just a few “strange creatures”. Still, everything was just beginning, and within a couple of years everything had changed, with “bedroom musicians” appearing everywhere in the metal scene. These were happy years!

On another note, while I was working on Cautiva’s «Human», I decided to make a thorough revision of all my music, both released and unreleased, from my early years. As a result, I released in that same 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 a truly rewarding experience for me, and it marked the direction I would follow in the years to come…

The experiment with Cautiva was a success and for a while I considered looking for musicians to form a real band. However, after releasing «Human», I finally decided to put Cautiva on hold indefinitely and focus on new projects. I wanted to return to my older musical ideas and give them a new perspective. So, in September 2009 I released the EP «Tunguska», a string quartet in three movements that marked a new path completely different from the CAUTIVA project or my previous piano recordings.

In April 2010 I completed «No More Faith», a dark and meditative chamber music album in which I tried to revisit various historical genres of Western music (medieval, baroque, classical, romanticism and 20th century). The result was ultimately eclectic, as «No More Faith» combined very different ideas, ranging from a neo-classical approach to experimental sound passages.

In the autumn of 2010 I began working simultaneously on several projects, which led to three very different releases in 2011. 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, a tribute to vinyl records where I experimented 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 created a fake live recording, specifically a solo piano concert “revisiting old and new pieces, playing new compositions written especially for the event and, finally, paying tribute to past and contemporary composers for whom innovation had always been essential”. This album was presented as a live concert in New York, but in reality it was a conceptual studio work that tried to play a game with the listener: offering a few clues to see if the listener could discover it was a fake concert. The clues were mainly in the booklet and in some phrases and keywords from “my speeches to the audience”. Winning the game meant going to an internet address to uncover the illusion. «The Illusionist (live at the Red Room Auditorium in New York)» received excellent reviews and closed a cycle in my music. I was very happy with both the concept and the final result.

While 2011 was a very active year for my music, 2012 was much quieter. After an unsuccessful attempt in the summer of 2012 to revive Cautiva (everything went terribly here!), I felt exhausted by music production and decided to stop making music indefinitely. This marked the end of “the eclectic years”.

After being involved in non-musical projects for two years, in 2014 I returned to music. First, I wanted to revisit 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 appeared on Cautiva’s «The Archangel Of Omega» EP (July 2015). After releasing this EP, I announced that I was leaving the Cautiva project indefinitely, due to the strong dedication it required and my intention to start a new period.

So, in 2015 I wrote about my long-term interest in making electronic music and being involved in different related projects. The idea was not only to record music, but also to channel my desire for knowledge and creativity into electronic music —as a way of learning, composing, improvising, exploring new instruments and techniques, researching and experimenting, and so on. After working for a few months, I released «Navigator» (LP, 2016), my first electronic album, in which I paid tribute to the classical and vintage electronic music I love (Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, Jean-Michel Jarre, Klaus Schulze and so on). I also experimented extensively with 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 gradually lost interest, abandoning the new projects I was working on and going into a hiatus. As a way of closing that period, in December 2017 I decided to release «Lost In Blue», an album collecting the music sporadically recorded that year along with some additional unreleased material rescued from the «Navigator» sessions. Ironically, in that same year I achieved one of my greatest musical ambitions: to have a large and dedicated room for my home studio! The Winter Lounge Studio was born —the place where I was creating music from time to time during the next years…

Between 2018 and 2020 my involvement with music was mostly low-key, due to a severe lack of time. Still, I released some additional electronic works, exploring concepts and techniques related to «Navigator» but giving a stronger role to ambient music. This was the case with two sibling EPs: «Spirit» (released in May 2019) and «The Dream» (May 2020).

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

During the rest of 2022 I released several compilations, reviewing my entire body of work. The most significant of these was the extended 4-LP compilation «Elements – A Comprehensive Introduction To Jose Travieso (1994-2022)» (November 2022), divided into four discs/parts (Earth, Water, Fire and Air), with all the music remastered. With these compilations I permanently cut all ties with the music I had created over the previous decades. Thus, 2022 was not only the definitive closure of my Cautiva project, but also the final closure of all the music I had made in the past.

Once again, 2023 was marked by a lack of time, and in the summer of 2024 I began to reactivate my music, intending to steer it toward a more ambient and experimental approach. As a result, over the following months three independent singles appeared: «Manujilskogo’s Dream» (December 2024), «Duality» (August 2025), and «…I’ll See You In The Stars» (also August 2025).

However, that same summer, while I was working on a YouTube channel dedicated to ambient music and conceptual-visual art created with artificial intelligence, a very personal discourse opened up within me about my values, my motivations, my life, ageing, etc., which led me to the conclusion that I genuinely wanted to break away from all my musical creations, to free myself from them so that I could start new projects in my life and try to lead a simpler life. I suppose I had grown tired, and music, for years, no longer gave me the pleasure and self-fulfillment it once did. This was the end of the road, August 2025.

Today I am still involved with music, but mainly as a listener. At home I sometimes play the electric guitar or piano, but with no other intention than to enjoy the moment or to learn to play something by an artist I appreciate (especially on guitar, oriented toward thrash metal). Currently, creating new songs or releasing music is not part of my plans. The future will tell.

Thanks a lot for reading!