As with Primavera – which All About Jazz lauded for being “sonically lustrous,” with an “intricate melodic sense” – the new All the Dreams glimmers with luminous melodicism and magical atmosphere, the music again casting a spell. The sound of All the Dreams mixes the organic and the electronic seamlessly, with Serpa & Matos playing multiple acoustic and electric instruments along with using the studio as an instrument; several tracks also feature Billy Mintz on drums and Pete Rende on ambient, Eno/Budd-like synthesizers. Along with Serpa’s signature wordless vocalese and the duo’s own lyrics, there are songs that draw on words of great poets, both Portuguese and English. Atmosphere and image, poetry and melody – this is the stuff of which All the Dreams is made.
The title of the album comes from its lovely song “Nada,” which features universalist lines by the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (via his heteronym Álvaro de Campos): “I am nothing, I shall never be anything / I cannot even wish to be anything. / Despite all that, I have within me all the dreams of the world.” The title phrase also appears in the poetry of Walt Whitman, a key influence on Pessoa: “I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other dreamers / And I become the other dreamers.” These words mirror the feelings of creative reverie Serpa & Matos had while composing the music for the album. The singer says: “We felt that this music was making us dream and disconnect somehow from the reality of the outside world – and that seemed to be a positive feeling. For us, to be able to work in this dreamlike state of mind is fundamental to staying creative and happy.”
About the leap from Primavera to the even more accomplished All the Dreams, Matos says: “Primavera planted a seed for us. Our duo identity developed throughout the making of that first album, and with the new one, we knew more about how to use the studio to our advantage. We wanted to pay even more attention to detail – sound, texture, words. We didn’t hesitate to depart from a ‘duo sound’ and do whatever it took to get the right feel for each song, whether through sonically multiplying ourselves or developing the sounds we produced. The mixing and post-production process was more intensive this time, and we did things like reverse the vocals on ‘amlaC.’ Pete Rende played such an important role in this, not only adding synthesizers to a few tracks but mixing the album, too. It’s hard to imagine the album without his contribution.”
As for the contribution of veteran drummer Billy Mintz, Matos adds: “We met Billy a few years ago, and he has become an important musician for me. He was super-meticulous in the studio, and the results are amazing, like pure gold. His dedication to music is inspiring, and his playing gives the record a nice contour. With Billy, there’s a search for a primal beat, playing almost like a child in the sense of being free. But at the same, he has all this knowledge and experience to apply. He is a master.”
Serpa & Matos make for a kindred-spirit duo, even beyond being husband and wife. Her fresh, subtly virtuosic singing blends beautifully with his gleaming, flowing guitar playing. “We do complement each other as performers easily, with most of the songs being reducible to just voice and guitar,” Matos says. “In the studio, we’re able to guide each other to the best performances possible, with sometimes even the best arrangements coming after the first take. Our tunes tend to have slightly different vibes, with Sara’s a bit more intricate and mine less dense, simpler. It creates a nice balance, we hope.”
In addition to those of Pessoa/Campos, the songs of All the Dreams include words by his fellow Portuguese writer Luis Amaro, Brazilian poet Clarice Lispector and the great Englishman William Blake, as well as lyrics by Serpa and Matos. There are songs about night, dreams and the imagination, about accepting sadness and offering forgiveness, about identity and empathy, about love and memory. Even the songs without words impart a sense of mystery and romance, with Serpa singing vocalese on such gems as the opening “Calma.” One of the album’s other, lyrical highlights is “Lisboa,” Serpa’s tune-rich paean to the ancient capital of Portugal. “The words stem from something a taxi driver once told me about Lisbon having 14,000 streets, alleys and staircases – and all those reflecting so many memories, for me, for everyone who has lived there,” Serpa says. “Because I live in America now, the city is distant from me, but somehow it remains so close to my heart. Every time I return to Lisbon, the memories come flooding back, the sense of place and time so strong. And music can evoke feelings of time and place – of memory – like little else in art.”
credits
released September 16, 2016
Sara Serpa - voice, piano (5 , 9, 10) & Fender Rhodes (4, 7)
André Matos - guitar, electric bass (1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12), percussion (11)
Pete Rende - synthesizer (1, 4, 14)
Billy Mintz - drums and percussion (1, 3, 6, 10)
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