Surma

About

Débora Umbelino is 24 years old and its known by its artistic name “Surma”. She was born in a small town near Leiria, Portugal and started having some musical adventures soon. While studying in the high school she won a band contest ZUS! with her first band “Backwater and the Screaming Fantasy”. Lately she started her solo project and soon started touring and having attention from the national media.
She attended a jazz course in Hot Club Lisbon, specialized in double bass and vocals. Later started an audio-visual post-production course in Restart.
The release of her first album “Antwerpen” earned the immediate attention of the media and great national festivals.
In the last two years she had 200 shows through 16 different cities around the world. From the North-American South By South West to the NYC Indie Week, from the Dutch Eurosonic Noorderslaag to the French MaMa Festival, from the Icelandic Iceland Airwaves to the Brazilian SIM São Paulo, from the Austrian Waves Vienna to the German Das Fest and from the Spanish ARN to the Slovenian Ment. Her album was edited in several European countries, nominated for best independent album by IMPALA (Independent Music Companies Association) and got featured in high reputation media companies such as BBC, Musikexpress or NPR.
Also, in this two years Surma played in small and large venues and festivals such as NOS Alive, Vodafone Paredes de Coura, Bons Sons, Super Bock Super Rock and NOS Primavera Sound. Collaborated with several artists and other musical projects such as “Concerts for Babies” and wrote some songs for the soundtrack of a Portuguese movie ”SNU”.
In the end of 2019 Surma is releasing a EP where she revisits her first songs written as a solo artist and prepares a second album with new songs.

"Equipped with a childlike voice — think Joanna Newsom — Surma masters every instrument that is around her. She studied double bass in a jazz school, but that never stopped her from learning every instrument she could reach. Her sonic blend combines ambient music, post-rock and jazz influences. The result? A really unique, warm and intimate sound. Ethereal melodies created by a one-woman-band that will take you to another place." – Europavox
"An exquisitely beautiful first track, it’s truly an otherworldly journey – through a shimmer guitar line, and Umbelino’s Bjork-esque vocals – there’s elements of Portishead and Daughter thrown in for good measure. This demand repeat listens." - Crack In The Road