Artist Detailed Info: Twisting Cells

TWISTING CELLS is the moniker of Seattle-based musician and songwriter JOHNNY CARDOSO, who started recording music as a teenager in high school.

Growing up in Butte, Montana, and spending summers in San Diego, California, Johnny was introduced to two drastically different parts of America. The small-town feel of Butte felt like a stick in the mud compared to the fun-in-the-sun taste of the Golden Coast he experienced every summer. In Montana, he found music as his main escape. Since a young child, Johnny knew that music was what he wanted to spend his life doing.

At 14 he decided to stay in Montana during the summers after his grandparents, who he spent summers with in California, decided to moved to Idaho. That summer Johnny discovered recording. Using a home computer microphone and a guitar, Johnny began recording relentlessly. Throughout high school, after developing his recording techniques (not to mention equipment) as well as his music and songwriting abilities, and learning various instruments, he accumulated over 5 hours of music.

After graduating high school in 2008 and moving to Seattle in 2009, Johnny began doing graphic design for various EDM and hip hop outfits throughout Seattle. He also co-owned a small label called Elevada Records until 2011, which also mainly focused on hip hop and electronica (which also included a hip hop project of his own, along with a number of other artists Elevada managed to network and connect with). Although an incredible learning experience, Elevada eventually dissipated. After, Johnny turned his eye back to his original passion, recording and releasing his singer-songwriter material. In may of 2011, Twisting Cells took form.

After gaining a decent amount of production skills in working with electronic music and hop hop, Johnny developed his digital handiwork. Combining that with his previous knowledge of instrumentation and songwriting, he began releasing recordings in May of 2011 and in July he released his first LP as Twisting Cells, “PORTRAIT“, a fuzz-ridden ode to folk, electronica, garage and existential wordplay.

Soon after, his freelance graphic design company RAWSPINE, soon became a record label as well. With plans of releasing more music under Twisting Cells with a wide variety of influences and sounds, Johnny plans on playing both solo shows throughout the Northwest as well as finding musicians to play full live sets, which he tends to have more heavy and garage-influenced compared to the more personal, folk-oriented solo shows.

The next Twisting Cells release, the “BALACLAVA BLUES” EP, is set to drop November 14, with the full-length LP “MILE HIGH CLUB” out November 23.

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