Portuguese pianist Luísa Gonçalves elaborates on the inscrutable musical  connections outlined on her triumphant first collection of solo works for Trem Azul – 2020’s Unno – with another deeply-finessed and delightfully fluid study in construction, style, ideas and expression, sustaining a lifelong dedication to her instrument and the realisation of its innate sound.
While its predecessor established an elusive vernacular informed by Debussy-like restraint and spirited jazz gamble, Under Your Breath underscores Gonçalves’ resolute commitment to her ongoing search via quiet revolution, with subtle cinematic atmospheres and eloquent tonal patterning realised though a broadening of influences and deepening awareness suffused in the piebald tinctures of extra-stimuli: silence, nature, beauty, love and time.
Under Your Breath also represents the exquisite culmination of Gonçalves’ painstaking studies thus far, which have taken her from Santa Cecilia’s Academy of Music and Lisbon’s Metropolitana Music Conservatory to Porto’s ESMAE and the University of Évora, her undeniable technique, poise and precision, honed within these academic halls, now filtered through the liberating autonomies afforded by a decade of bold improvisation and diverse in-concert alliances.
Across eight captivating tracks, Gonçalves inveigles the piano of its inner mysteries, just as author-philosopher Goncalo M. Tavares penetrates the furtive enigmas of language and literature, to unearth a simple inner truth. As Gonçalves locates the beating heart in each bountiful refrain, she takes another step closer, towards the sublime quintessence of her dazzling art.

All compositions by Luísa Gonçalves

Recorded June 8th, 2023 at Namouche Studios, Lisbon by Joaquim Monte and Miguel Peixoto | Mastered by Simon Wadsworth
Produced by Luísa Gonçalves | Executive production Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Cover photo by David Gonçalves Rodrigues | Design by Travassos