From someone working on the free jazz/noise rock side of things as the Portuguese guitarist Luís Lopes, the Love Song project came at first as a bizarre surprise. At its third appearance in record we finally understand: even the most of histrionic musicians need to create an introspective, calm space to figure out all things in life, beginning with music itself. That’s what happens in “Emmentes” with only a nylon-stringed acoustic guitar being heard. Lopes questions music at its basis, the association of a note to another, the forming of a chord, the slow construction of a harmonic progression and, more than this, the feelings, the thoughts, the memories, the expectations behind, those immaterial elements that music tries to express because no words can.
The king of feedback guitar and distortion on the Lisbon underground music scene shows his vulnerability in this collection of pieces about love, for someone else and for life and all its aspects, be it a flower (“Variations on Cerejeiras”), a woman (“Variations on She” and “Variations on She Is”) or music (“Coda”). Good for him, and good for us.

All composition and harmony arrangements by Luis Lopes, playing nylon strings acoustic guitar

Recorded June 30th 2021 by Joaquim Monte at Namouche Studios, Lisbon | Mixed by Luis Lopes, August 2021 | Mastered by David Zuchowsky at Daver Noise Studios (davidzuchowsky.com), Chicago, September 2021
Produced by Luis Lopes | Executive production by Travassos for Trem Azul | Photography by André Cepeda | Design by Travassos