Mutestare - The Violet Wind of Electronic Music

Suspended between the superhuman tensions of cosmic music, the austere enchantment of ambient and the inescapable pull of the subconscious, the solo project of Portuguese musician Miguel Pereira has carved out a space for itself in the underground of electronic music thanks to an outstanding debut. Recently, after a long period of reflection, he's returned with a new work, giving us the chance to take a closer look at his music, his ideas and his future plans

by Francesco Nunziata

The solo project of Miguel Pereira, Mutestare is a place of the soul where the boundless transcendent tensions that have always besieged the human psyche cross paths with that desire to probe the Earth's most inaccessible depths, a challenge that is, for him, every bit as fascinating.

Born in 1990 in Faro, southern Portugal, Miguel spent a relatively happy childhood, full of "lots of games with friends and time spent outdoors". He came to music gradually and in no systematic way: "No musical education, aside from listening to other people's creations. I gradually got used to all kinds of sounds, practically every genre, and in a sense I became desensitized to what would normally be shocking or unfamiliar sonic palettes. But it took a while, of course; I was maybe just past twenty. I remember my sister playing me Nirvana when I must have been 6 or 7, and the screamed parts scared me, though I liked them anyway. I also think playing Final Fantasy on the PlayStation One had a lot to do with my musical education. Those soundtracks, especially the one for 'Final Fantasy VIII', took root deep in my psyche in ways I'm now, looking back, extremely grateful for. They probably fed my inclination toward ambient music, which would resurface much later. In any case, I've been listening to more 'serious' music since I was around fourteen, and then, thanks to RateYourMusic, I discovered there are tons of different genres and was able to refine my musical taste. Luckily, I've learned not to say no to anything based purely on a preconceived idea."

Until he was about twenty, Miguel dabbled on guitar without any clear direction, tinkering with a couple of friends on noise textures. "Then I tried to come up with something like early Stars Of The Lid", he tells us. "So I ended up buying a synth and started making music on my own under the name Mutestare, which sounded good at the time, though today it seems a bit ridiculous. In any case, I meant it to evoke a strange, intense, uncomfortable gaze."

mutestare_a_violet_wind His full-length debut, A Violet Wind (14 tracks; 111:14), arrived in June 2018, and immediately established itself as one of the best ambient/cosmic albums of the decade. Released by Vulpiano Records, the album is a monumental tribute to both the most elegiac strands of ambient and to German cosmic music. However, to add more depth to certain lyrical nuances, Miguel also dips his brush into the palettes of progressive-electronic and folk. Thematically, it's a genuine concept album, built around the story of a boy who, after dreaming of a golden homunculus, undergoes a series of fantastical experiences, falls asleep in a forest, and is then taken away by aliens who come for him: "To be honest, it's much easier for me to think of an image or a scene, or even a plot, and start from there. I'm certainly not a special artist in this sense, probably a lot of ambient musicians choose to work this way. I simply followed the idea of the plot. I find it very difficult to make music without some kind of stimulus, without a series of images to give it direction. Without proper musical training or natural talent, I'm left with very little to start from. At the time, I was very convinced of the concept of 'get out of there, explore the discomfort and accept it'. Today it's almost a cliché, but the internet and the age of Westernized, industrialized comfort have brought about this natural counter-reaction. Essentially, the album's character meets that fate because he didn't try to solve his problems the right way, instead fleeing into a world of desires. I believe, on the other hand, that doing the right thing and telling the truth will take you a long way, whatever happens. People who, for whatever reason, have never genuinely connected with that state of mind in any meaningful way might be dismissive of it, because usually, until you actually experience it, it's never real, it all just seems abstract and distant. I think we can be channels for that 'higher truth' if we make sure our bodies are functioning at their best and our thoughts are clear. When we get there, our intuition and our deepest feelings grow stronger and, I believe, become more aligned with what's right for us."

Opened by the sweeping overture of "The Golden Homunculous", the album flows seamlessly into the radiant glow of "First Hour Of The Morning – The Machine Revs Up", whose crystalline melodies interlace into veritable sculptures carved out of outer space. Kosmische musik is also the main point of reference for the galactic vistas of "The Second Dream" and for the grandiloquent crescendo, with its swirl of dissonant strings and sci-fi-blockbuster vertigo, of "The Woods (Stuck)", compositions in which the grandeur of Klaus Schulze and the lyrical fibrillations of Tangerine Dream go hand in hand, clearly showing, if further proof were needed, that the further this music pushes toward the boundless reaches of the cosmos, the deeper it ends up sinking into those of the human soul.

The first part of "Work Hard (Grumpy)" is instead gripped by a rough, minimalist pulse, whose intensity builds until it collapses abruptly, giving way to a geometric sonata and then a suspended coda. The pacified clearings of "Go Home, It's Night Already" (Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie are there, nodding silently) are mirrored by the more folk-oriented tones of "Early Reflections" (a track that recalls some of David Garland's meditations on "Verdancy"), as well as by the fairy-tale atmospheres of "A Dinner And A Rabbit", while the trembling symphonism of "Leave" pairs with the classicizing textures of "Memories And Precognitions", whose backdrop is rounded out by a recording of the memories of a man in his eighties.

At the start of "Watch The Birds Fly", a sequencer races wildly amid noisy thuds. Field recordings captured in a subway then emerge, their human fragrance immediately transfigured into a bucolic clearing surrounded by trails of synthesizers hovering like shadows from otherworldly dimensions. Listening to "Broken – A Street At 5am" really does feel like being catapulted into the infinitesimal spaces of a dark side street in the early hours of the morning: you "observe" its details under a microscope, picking up on sounds impossible to catch with the naked ear, while a piano releases its notes like icy exhalations of death.

The settings bordering on psychological horror of "Sleep Better Lost" and the sci-fi atmospheres of "What's That" round out a fresco as imposing as it is intense and visionary.

mutestare_my_house_is_full_of_faces For seven years, the Mutestare moniker essentially vanished from view. Then, in March 2025, came the return with My House Is Full Of Faces (12 tracks; 69:40). "Composing is fun and frustrating. I feel like I should be doing something creative. To be honest, often I don't enjoy it. The passion for music only comes sporadically, even though I feel obligated to do it. Still, I try not to force things, which is why the new project took so long to complete."

Less effective than its predecessor, My House Is Full Of Faces shifts toward more pacified sounds, toward an ambient music of the subconscious (listen, for instance, to "Floating Bowels") guided by the idea of music as a magnifying glass for reaching the essence of things, as "Golden Furniture In A Fading Room" makes clear right from the start.

Moving along at a steady pace, though without any truly standout moments, amid oblique, disorienting requiems ("The Beam In Thyne Eye"), noisy dissolutions that spill into an almost suffocating intimacy ("Predicament"), otherworldly dj-sets ("Feels The Same In The Crimson Room"), manipulations of strings and keys ("Imp") and excursions more clearly influenced by cosmic music ("Renew", "Arrival At Canaan"), Miguel Pereira's return shows an artist still evolving, fresh from a new chapter in his life. "In recent years", he says, "I moved to Lisbon and got my life better oriented. Now, thanks largely to greater financial security, I'm generally more at ease. As for my music, I still use the same setup, the same synthesizers, the same technology. I'm lazy when it comes to changing things like that. As for the creative process, the main difference compared to my previous record was the willingness not to rush. I don't think that led to an improvement in mixing and mastering quality, but I did refine my sound a great deal, getting much closer to what I originally wanted with 'A Violet Wind', in terms of atmosphere. I redid entire songs more than once, which I hadn't done at all with the first one. Since I finished the latest album, I've bought a new laptop, so I'm hoping the next album will have better production."