Galatheia is the moniker of Téa Shaldeva, an artist, occasional DJ and record label owner based in Skopje, Macedonia. She started out as a vocalist in underground bands during her late primary / early high school days and began experimenting with electronic music forms as back as 2007, later releasing her first single in 2012. Releasing several singles and taking part in several compilations eventually leads her to compose, record and produce her debut album ‘Metropol’ (2017), which is the first electronic music album fully created and produced by a female artist in her homeland.
Aside from music production, she has a longstanding relationship with radio (or in later years) streaming platforms. She was a part of Skopje’s independent alternative radio station ‘Kanal 103’ for 7 years (2010-2017). Aside from curating her own Wednesday night radio show ‘dreamachine’, she quicky got an opportunity to do the Monday morning peak hour selection (Glavna Struja) and quicky became a part of ‘zavisnalista.mk’, the radio’s own weekly chart of contemporary, new songs, made by local and regional alternative artists, both upcoming and experienced. She continued her love for promoting and supporting the local scene in Skopje curating a monthly residency called ‘Microdosing’ on the Skopje-based streaming platform/internet radio Amok Radio from its beginnings to its closure in September 2022. An hour of her show, strictly dedicated to local music, was dubbed “#FuckFake,” which long lived a concert by local artists hosted in the radio’s headquarters.
Lately, she curates a monthly podcast on the well-known Tbilisi based platform Mutant Radio. Her show is called ‘Underskopje’, and as usual, her aim is to meet and greet Mutant Radio’s wide audience with the colorful alternative music hailing from North Macedonia, aiming to broaden its horizons to the whole Balkan region.
As for her own origial sound, a few things are ever-present: sultry vocal chants, a haunting atmosphere, a specific versatility, and a tendency towards alternative sound above all in any context. She doesn’t aim to put her music on the dancefloor by any means necessary – she uses the electronic music forms and methods in her own favor, utilizing them to serve her own authenticity rather than define it. Putting it a bit poetically, Galatheia is the name of the voice and the origin of the beats that play in Téa Shaldeva’s mind while she’s forming sounds or simply falling asleep. Whether style it fits in at any given time, the unmistakable intimacy and need for finding new ways to express and dissolve her inherited musical matrix marks her music in a profound manner.
Starting in 2023, she launched her own record label SKOPSKA SEKTA.