Manuel Mota (guitarist)

Manuel Mota (born October 22, 1970) is an experimental jazz and blues guitarist from Lisbon, Portugal.

Mota started playing guitar at 15.^[1] In the late 1980s his discovery of experimental music, jazz and all the underground activity of that period inspired him to turn his work public, which happened in 1989. Between 1989 and 1997 he studied and experimented with prepared guitar, mainly acoustic, and focused his work on drone music, influenced by Phill Niblock and La Monte Young. Since then his interests shifted to the development of a personal language for fingerstyle guitar and started working in a regular basis with bassist Margarida Garcia.

He collaborated closely with Sei Miguel from 1997 to 2005. In 1998 he founded Headlights, a record label. Artists whom Mota has played and recorded with include Tetuzi Akiyama, Chris Corsano, Lukas Ligeti, Mattin, Donald Miller (of Borbetomagus), Phill Niblock, Gino Robair, and Ernesto Rodrigues.

Personal discography

• Outubro - solo guitar playing, 2CD, Headlights h08/09, Lisbon 2006
• Quartets, CD, Headlights h07, Lisbon 2004
• Leopardo, CD, Rossbin rs009, Italy 2003
• For Your protection Why Don't You Just Paint Yourself Real Good Like An Indian, CD, Headlights h04, Lisbon 2001
• I wish I'd never met you, CD, Headlights h02, Lisbon 1999
• Environment Analysis Report, CD, AnAnAnA, Lisbon 1995

And also

• Dorsal, w/ Ernesto Rodrigues and Gabriel Paiuk- CD, Creative Sources CS012, Lisbon 2004
• Small Damage Under Appearance, w/ Margarida Garcia and Alfredo Costa Monteiro- CDr, Thin Ice, Lisbon 2003
• Ra Clock, Sei Miguel- CD, Headlights h06, Lisbon 2002
• Assemblage, Ernesto Rodrigues- CD, Creative Sources CS007, Lisbon 2002
• Noe’s Lullaby, David Maranha- CD, Rossbin, Italy 2002
• Still Alive in Bairro Alto, Sei Miguel- CD, Headlights h05, Lisbon 2001
• Circunscrita, David Maranha, CD, Namskeio, Lausanne, 2000
• Token, Sei Miguel, CD, AnAnAnA, Lisbon 1999
• Chasing Sonic Booms, Rafael Toral- CD, Ecstatic Peace!, New York 1998.

References