Few songwriters in Portugal know and respect the Portuguese language like JP Simões. For our sins' sake (Para mal dos nossos pecados), with the exception of one song for the 2018 Festival da Canção, he has not written in the language of the “Ópera do Falhado”, of Quinteto Tati, of “1970”, of “Boato” and of “Roma” since 2013; he has not even sung his repertoire in Portuguese since he reinvented himself as Bloom, in 2016. But that is about to end. On November 28, ten years after he stopped singing his Portuguese songbook, and twenty years after the release of his first album under his own name, “1970”, the Coimbra native will return to the songs from his 2006 album, at Casa Capitão. Those and the ones from the later “Boato” and “Roma”, plus a few more from Quinteto Tati and his “Ópera do Falhado”. Perhaps even from “Onde Mora o Mundo” (2010), recorded with jazz guitarist Afonso Pais for the historic Orfeu, in 2011. Convincing him to revisit this material was not easy. “I never wanted to be a guy who repeats himself, who lives off past credits”, he admits, at the table of his home on the outskirts of Sintra. “But Gonçalo Riscado, [director] of Casa Capitão and one of the first publishers I had, many years ago, called me and convinced me that there could be room to pick up my old musings again, my love disasters and my small reflections.” JP Simões had never been one to repeat himself. From his militancy in Pop Dell'Arte of “Sex Symbol” to writing short stories and for theater, through the ravings of Belle Chase Hotel, a fundamental band of late-90s Portugal, the “Exílio” of Quinteto Tati, the songs written solo and with guitarist Afonso Pais or the approach to the Anglo-Saxon canon of Bloom, his artistic and poetic practice was marked by a constant search for the new. Until another publisher, Hugo Ferreira, from Omnichord, challenged him to record an album in which he made José Mário Branco's songs his own. “I had never thought I would feel so good making an album as an interpreter”, he acknowledges. “I always had the notion that my work had to be one of personal discovery: psychoanalysis, countless stories. Inventing songs and singing, with all that simplicity; with that thing where sometimes you make some sense to others and other times things are a bit idiosyncratic.” “I felt a great welcome [from the audience]. I understood that one of the good things in life is giving body to things that are interesting and beautiful. At the Avante! festival it was truly incredible.
Everyone singing with me, with the lyrics known by heart. I was anything but a protagonist, I felt more like a match setting fire to a forest of songs”, he assures. Also for this reason, his “obsession is no longer originality”, as it was for decades. “My obsession, now, is elegance and beauty. And this concert, at Casa Capitão, is an opportunity to give a final test to all the songs I have been making in this ten-year interval, between 2003 and 2013.” He admits to having a complicated relationship with them, but “there are two, or three, or four, or five, or ten, or fourteen songs that still make some sense”, he jokes. “And those are the ones I will play on November 28.” Similar to what happened with the North American compilation “Introducing JP Simões”, which will be presented at this concert and whose tracklist was chosen by publisher Robbie Arroyo, it was also not the singer who made the setlist for this show. That responsibility fell to Nuno Ferreira, a close collaborator, who also accompanied him on the album and at the tribute concerts to José Mário Branco. “Nuno Ferreira has been making new arrangements for these songs, including for some that never had arrangements. Giving them a new life”, reveals the singer-songwriter. Besides him, on guitar and musical direction, the band that will take the stage at Casa Capitão also includes drummer João Pereira, Pedro Pinto on double bass, Luís Cunha on trumpet and flute and, of course, JP Simões, on guitar and “taking advantage of this opportunity to sing again songs that have not seen the light of day in a concert for many years”. It was about time. ,