Montoya, who grew up in Colombia and now resides in Italy, entered music as a classically trained violinist. He’s keen to stress his gratitude for this adolescent education, not only in how it exposed revealed whole new worlds of music, but permitted him travel places and sample different cultures from a young age, including playing at such renowned orchestra theaters as Gran Teatro de La Habana in Cuba and the Musikverein in Vienna. This classical upbringing naturally informed his inclusive, and methodically exacting, attitude to songwriting and production.

He eventually joined Fabrica, a “cultural subversion center” based in Treviso, Italy, which he explains as providing the creative framework for him to experiment with art, photography, film and design; evidently apprising the cinematic qualities of his music.

The pan-international musicality of his Montoya project is rooted in the musical diaspora of his native Colombia. This diaspora is vast; indigenous folk music hailing from Amazonian and Andean tribes; the cosmopolitan synthesis of modern reggaeton and traditional salsa taking place in Bogota and Medellin, and the Afro-Caribbean stylings of Cumbia and Champeta. Fusing the multi-layered precision of his classical education, his innate curiosity for Latin and “world” music, and affection for melodic electronica; his discography is at once ambitious and comfortingly familiar, as desirous of a catchy harmony as conceptual melding of Latin folk and modern electronics. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.