noiserv

At the very first glance, we can sense that in Noiserv’s universe the attention is focused on the very small and particular details, which put altogether, make great songs.

A very poetic and ethereal universe that could easily relates to Yann Tiersen, Radiohead, Sigur Ros, Explosions in the sky, his main references.

Noiserv is the solo project of David Santos.

David Santos was raised in Lisbon (Portugal) in a family of music lovers. Though he was not a musician, his father taught him his first chords on an old guitar they had at home. Apart from that, everything else was self-taught.

He learned to play guitar, experienced some bands in high school, and then started Noiserv, his most serious project, at the age of 22 in 2005 (while pursuing a career as an IT engineer). As he puts it himself: “Noiserv is my way to feel the world, my way to tell my feelings to the people, summarizing: it’s myself if I was a song”.

David works on his own throughout the whole process of writing songs, making videos, recording, releasing and performing them on stage.

His first album “One hundred miles from Thoughtlessness” was released in 2008 in Portugal and was critically acclaimed. He ended up selling more than 10.000 copies of it (all on his own). It was followed by the EP “A day in the day of the days” [a soundtrack for a day], another EP “Bullets on Parade” released by the Scottish label Autumn Ferment, and by a soundtrack he composed for “José & Pilar” a movie on the literature Nobel Prize Jose Saramago directed by Miguel Gonçalves Mendes (whose documentary was in the Oscars pre-selection).

In 2011, the avant-garde musician Julianna Barwick delivered a remix of one of his songs “Melody Pops” which was featured and reviewed on Pitchfork.

And in the end of 2013, he released his 2nd album “Almost Visible Orchestra” [4500 sales in Portugal] for which he received the utmost prestigious prize of “best record of the year” by the Portuguese National Authors Society.

During, this period [2008 – 2013], he had also some notable appearances in theatre acts doing live soundtracks and toured massively, first in Portugal where he performed more than 400 shows visiting the most prestigious stages and festivals, and finds himself sharing stages with acts like Arcarde Fire, Portishead, but also in other European countries: UK, Belgium, France, Germany, Holland, Slovenia, Austria, Sweden with a well-noticed performance at Eurosonic Festival in Groningen (at the Grand Theater) and at Europavox in France. This last performance was reviewed by les inrocks as “A tender triumph… Strong and opulent”.

On 2015, the album “Almost Visible Orchestra” was released worldwide via the French label naïve, house of M83, Yann Tiersen and many more.

2016 is the year of the emancipation on Noiserv outside Portugal with more than 40 shows around Europe with a huge focus in France "Brillant homme-orchestre, totalement autodidacte" [Rue 89].

In the end of the same year, Noiserv released a new and conceptual record named 00:00:00:00 a soundtrack for a movie that doesn't exists yet.

On live performances Noiserv, David Santos, is known as a "one-man orquestra" using a lot of instruments, such metallophone, melodica, bells, several synths, omnichord, megaphone, guitars, vocals, toys, music boxes and many more all combined with the "well-known" loopstation, taking the concert into a completely new experience.