It’s early morning in France. Someone’s lost Gonçalo’s guitar. When it finally shows up, it’s cracked and bruised, like it’s been on its own little tour. Still, that’s the one he ends up using to record TRAVO’s live session for KEXP. It sounds like it’s been through something. So does the band.
TRAVO’s been grinding for years. Braga, Portugal isn’t exactly the psychedelic capital of Europe, but they’ve carved something out: two albums (Ano Luz, 2019; Sinking Creation, 2022) that hinted at something larger, and then Astromorph God in 2023, which made the promise impossible to ignore. It came out on Spinda Records and gig.ROCKS!, and suddenly the international scene started taking notes.
What followed wasn’t just buzz—it was structure. Bookers, festivals, strategy. FOCUS Wales and Sonic Whip invited them in for May 2024. A proper European tour grew around those shows. France, Belgium, the Netherlands, back to Portugal.
Then Trans Musicales came knocking, and with it, a chance to tape a session for KEXP. The kind of thing that doesn’t just happen.
“Portuguese psych rockers TRAVO brought the house down during their Live on KEXP from Trans Musicales session recorded at l’Antipode in Rennes, France. Their set was a fiery onslaught of scorching, shredding, massive sound. I can’t recommend this session enough to anyone who needs a rock & roll pummeling to brighten their day.” – DJ Morgan, KEXP, Saturdays 12-3pm PT
They played four songs. Three off Astromorph God—“Faceless Ghoul”, “Arrow of Motion”, “Turn to the Sun”—plus one new one, “Sleeper”, from the next record they’re already working on.
“Faceless Ghoul” leans into repetition, a bass line that keeps things tight while the guitars wind around it. The lyrics? It’s right there in the title—crossing paths with something vague and unsettling. A form without a name, a threat you can’t quite trace.
“Arrow of Motion” is their favorite to play live. “We feel that its punchy, in-your-face chorus grabs the listener instantly,” they explain, but it’s more than that.
The song stretches out into this long, slow spiral of drums and delay, a sort of controlled unraveling. Lyrically, it touches on movement, light and dark, tension, not settling.
“Turn to the Sun” brings heat. They talk about it as a song about fear. Steady climbs, crashing ends. It’s not optimism, but something closer to confrontation—turning toward the source instead of away.
And then “Sleeper”, still unreleased, already part of the set. It flips between speed and space, a tight-laced riff giving way to a jam section that eventually tears wide open.
The lyrics frame it around this idea of something—someone—haunting your head, slipping in with just a glance.
The KEXP taping itself was loud. Always is with TRAVO. But they were fed well—“really nice breakfast in a boutique stay-in,” they say—and made to feel at home. “We felt pretty comfortable with everything,” they admit.
That counts for something when you’re tired, in a new country, holding a damaged guitar.
This wasn’t some polished victory lap. It was a band showing up, holding their weird little world together with gaffer tape and instinct. And it landed.
They’re on the road again in 2025. Porto, Fafe, Brussels, Netphen, Pleszew. Red Smoke and Freak Valley are already confirmed. They’ll keep writing. Probably keep fixing gear along the way too.
The session is up now. Four songs, no filler. It’s not trying to be perfect. It’s just TRAVO—loud, worn-in, ready.
Tour Dates:
03 April | Porto (PT) @ Maus Habitos
19 April | Fafe (PT) @ Aniversário Malfeito
03 May | São João da Madeira (PT) @ Party Sleep Repeat
21 June | Netphen (DE) @ Freak Valley Festival
13 July Pleszew | (PO) @ Red Smoke Festival
23 August | Brussels (BE) @ Down The Hill Festival
+ more to be announced
More photos from the KEXP session:
