Lisbon, Jan. 22, 2025 (Lusa) - Linda Martini are releasing "Passa-Montanhas" this week, an "inward-looking" album that reflects what's happening in the world and the process of changing the band's line-up with the addition of guitarist Rui Carvalho.

"Passa-Montanhas", to be released on Friday, is the first album recorded by Linda Martini since Pedro Geraldes left and Rui Carvalho (Filho da Mãe) joined.

The change of one of the members could mean a break with the past, but that wasn't the case.

"It's not a total break with the past, but it wasn't because we didn't want to do different things. We always want to. The point is that there is already such a strong identity that it was natural for Rui to try to find a space and realise how we all work together," said the group's lead singer, André Henriques, in an interview with the Lusa news agency.

Although it's not a concept album, one subject runs through "Passa-Montanhas": "The idea of having a better conversation".

Between composing and recording, the four spent "as much time around the songs as they did around plates and food", with lots of conversation in between.

"It was an album where we closed in on ourselves. It had to be that way, also to try and find that space for dialogue. And I think it shows," said André Henriques.

At the same time, since they had a lot of time together to reflect, "a lot of the themes that came up - about current affairs, whether social or political - also ended up transpiring on the record".

"At the same time as it's an inward-looking record, which is how it needed to be to grow, it also reflects a lot of what our moment has been and what's going on around us," he added.

Pedro Geraldes left the band in February 2022, shortly before the release of "Êrror". At that time, he was replaced by Rui Carvalho, initially taking into account only the album's presentation tour.

"As soon as we had some time to compose, we realised that there was chemistry, which had already begun when he joined the band. We had a lot of time on the road and conversations to strengthen that connection and learn, or relearn, how to make music between the four of us," André Henriques shared.

As on previous albums, the composition process for "Passa-Montanhas" began with a residency, a way for the musicians to escape their day-to-day lives and commitments outside the band's context.

They were "almost in a “creative tank” at Espaço Serra in Leiria for almost a week.

"It was the first residency we've done where we took practically nothing from home. Normally, in other residencies, we always had a handful of ideas that we were going to develop. Here it was a clean slate and trying to figure out what would come out of it," he recalled.

The recording process also occurred in "isolation" in Catalonia, Spain, with producer Santi Garcia, with whom they had already worked.

The recording studio is located between two mountains in an idyllic setting, and they spent several days there.

Among the ten songs that make up "Passa-Montanhas", some are "very personal", which deal with "private matters that are not decipherable to outsiders", "but others about extra-personal, more social matters".

"You look around and realise that people have lost the ability to converse and understand different points of view, and I think that's also present in the songs. People need to learn how to converse better," he said.

On the disc, there are mentions of Chico Buarque, José Afonso and José Mário Branco, "lifelong" musical references for the band members, which may not be obvious when you think about the sound they make, which "falls into the melting pot of rock".

"We were all born in the 80s, and it's part of our generation. We grew up with this discography inherited from our parents: Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Milton Nascimento, other names in Brazilian music, and the so-called singers of the revolution, Zeca Afonso, Zé Mário Branco, Sérgio Godinho," he said.

These and other names have always been present in the idea and image of the song that the four of them have. "The people we learnt to put the language to music with, to understand what music Portuguese had, were those names. That leaves its mark," he said.

"Passa-Montanhas", to be released on CD and vinyl, will be performed live on 31 January in Lisbon, at LAV-Lisboa ao Vivo, and on 1 February in Porto, at the Hard Club.

JRS/ADB // ADB.

Lusa