Tiago Sousa started playing the piano from an early age, his grandmother being a piano teacher, but gave up pretty soon to pick a guitar and play in a number of bands inspired by Nirvana. At 26 he went back to the piano and started releasing albums in 2006 on his netlabel Merzbau.
The Western Lands (2008), composed after William S. Burroughs’ homonymous novel, signalled Tiago’s first foray into a conceptual sphere that has been one of his trademarks ever-since.
Insónia (2009) took the pianist to new heights (it was recorded as a trio, alongside percussionist Baltazar Molina and clarinetist Ricardo Ribeiro) and established Tiago firmly on the Portuguese music scene.
2011 opened-up yet more possibilities: Tiago co-founded the Pão trio, alongside experimental and improvised music key-figures Travassos and Pedro Sousa, and toured extensively promoting Walden Pond’s Monk, his second conceptual work, inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s writings. 2012 saw the release of Pão’s first album, on Clean Feed’s new imprint label Shhhpuma, and Tiago was commissioned to write the Portuguese version of the Complaints Choir by the Maria Matos Municipal Theatre in Lisbon, while also working on music for film, namely on Autobiografia, by directors João and Miguel Manso.
Drawing from a variety of Eastern Philosophy concepts, Samsara was released on Immune Recordings in 2013 and revealed a growing compositional complexity.
Performing at Cafe OTO on 03/03/2016, Tiago Sousa presented his latest opus Um Piano Nas Barricadas a highly accomplished collection of tracks released on vinyl by Discrepant.