It’s about being who we are: independent and free.

This is the way João Nicolau Quintela also known as Joaquim Tela presents himself. A 22-year-old musical artist from Faro, Portugal.

Drinking inspiration from Portuguese traditional music, from the nights spent with his grandmother listening to Carlos Paredes and Madredeus, while eating Maria cookies with tea, and from the Zeca Afonso songs that his mother and his grandfather sang to him. Peculiar sails to the modernism and mixes his influences together with references as Rosalia, Stromae and Mahmood.

Peculiar explores his own musical sonority in a manifestation of freedom of speech, movement, and individuality, with an image that sets apart from what it’s supposed to. Distinguishing himself due to his dark and realistic lyrics, inspired in the world of fantastic literature that he read when he was younger, where there are no patterns, everyone is as they are and there’s space to be whatever you want to be.

Besides participating on the 48Hours short movie festival as a soundtrack composer, Peculiar as also participated in 2019 in Música Já, a competition for authorial music, where he placed 4th, was selected as one of the artists of the Cápsula project from Faro2027, played in South Music in 2021 and in Festival F in 2022 in Faro. More recently he contributed to the composition of 3 themes for Aurea’s new album “Moods”. He graduated the 8th grade with classical guitar and voice in the Conservatorium and is currently studying Songwriting and Music Production in ETIC and voice and jazz guitar in Hot Clube.