Margarida Garcia
Born 1977, Lisbon
Emerging in the mid-1990s from Lisbon’s experimental underground, she developed a language for electric double bass built on restraint, tension, and the expressive use of tone and silence.
Garcia’s playing is defined by a deep focus on the bow’s capacity to draw sound from the instrument as if from within, producing a sense of weight and gravity rather than volume or speed.
Her music unfolds patiently, often hovering between melody and noise, with an emphasis on phrasing and the physical texture of sound.
Working across solo projects and long-standing collaborations, Garcia blurs the lines between composition, improvisation, and sonic sculpture.
Her partnership with guitarist Manuel Mota has been central since the late 1990s, forming one of the most distinctive duos in European experimental music.
Other significant collaborations include recordings and performances with Marcia Bassett, Thurston Moore, Loren Connors, Mattin, and David Maranha, among others. Each partnership reveals a different facet of her playing — from sharply etched dialogue to near-static concentration on resonance and decay. Whether solo or in ensemble, Garcia’s bass speaks in gestures that are economical yet charged, exploring what remains when the familiar structures of music are bent and twisted upon themselves.
Since 2014 she has lived between Lisbon and Antwerp, where she frequently works with Björn Schmelzer's ensemble Graindelavoix in their various artistic projects.
Her visual work has also gained momentum through exhibitions such as Blind Man’s Buff, Housewife Pessimism, and Gebrauchsmusik, where she reflects on the inherent dysfunction of art through printmaking and monotype — a medium conceived for mechanical reproduction that, in her practice, produces only singular, unrepeatable images.
Garcia’s playing is defined by a deep focus on the bow’s capacity to draw sound from the instrument as if from within, producing a sense of weight and gravity rather than volume or speed.
Her music unfolds patiently, often hovering between melody and noise, with an emphasis on phrasing and the physical texture of sound.
Working across solo projects and long-standing collaborations, Garcia blurs the lines between composition, improvisation, and sonic sculpture.
Her partnership with guitarist Manuel Mota has been central since the late 1990s, forming one of the most distinctive duos in European experimental music.
Other significant collaborations include recordings and performances with Marcia Bassett, Thurston Moore, Loren Connors, Mattin, and David Maranha, among others. Each partnership reveals a different facet of her playing — from sharply etched dialogue to near-static concentration on resonance and decay. Whether solo or in ensemble, Garcia’s bass speaks in gestures that are economical yet charged, exploring what remains when the familiar structures of music are bent and twisted upon themselves.
Since 2014 she has lived between Lisbon and Antwerp, where she frequently works with Björn Schmelzer's ensemble Graindelavoix in their various artistic projects.
Her visual work has also gained momentum through exhibitions such as Blind Man’s Buff, Housewife Pessimism, and Gebrauchsmusik, where she reflects on the inherent dysfunction of art through printmaking and monotype — a medium conceived for mechanical reproduction that, in her practice, produces only singular, unrepeatable images.
photo by Andre Hencleeday