Recorded in Los Angeles, the album is released by Amor In Sound as the artist unveils a new exhibition at the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology
Portuguese visual artist and musician João Pimenta Gomes releases his new album, Dois Desertos, on October 1. Recorded in a single day, the album emerged spontaneously during the artist’s stay in Los Angeles, free from a set agenda or preconceived plan. Released by the independent label Amor In Sound, the nine-track record unfolds through a dreamlike soundscape, offering an outsider’s perspective on the metropolis—one that observes the city without the urgency to belong, instead remaining open to its rhythms, textures, and vibrations. Listen here.
“This album was made with a great deal of freedom, guided by encounters. What you hear is a record of what happened in that moment,” the artist explains. Produced by Mario Caldato Jr., and featuring musicians Abe Rounds (drums and percussion) and Gabe Noel (double bass and cello), Dois Desertos offers listeners simple scores, some of them built solely around written harmony.
The mixing, also performed live by Caldato Jr., follows the same spirit, with effects and levels shaped in real time and captured directly onto a final two-track master. The cristal baschet, chosen as the project’s central instrument, plays a key role in defining its sonic character. Through manual friction that causes glass rods to resonate against metal plates, producing a sound the artist describes as “a trail, almost like a shadow,” the instrument takes on a supporting role, while the double bass and cello carry the melodies. These alternate between original compositions and, in certain cases, passages drawn from traditional fado, approached with an open-ended sensibility.
Initially conceived under the title Eagle Rock—a reference to the location of the recording studio—the album would eventually take on broader conceptual dimensions. “The desert is a very beautiful and visual place. Simply saying the word transports us there. It is something you can see, but it also carries the idea of emptiness, a horizon you can never reach, an idea of utopia,” João explains. “In the music I make, this utopia is important. There isn’t exactly a conclusion to the album; it is something that remains in development.” In this sense, his new songs unfold as a cohesive whole, with the ultimate reward of listening lying in the possibility of drifting freely and surrendering to the experience.
Inspired by everything a major city can offer in terms of sound and image, João Pimenta Gomes also draws on cinematic references as he develops this path. The external gaze that shapes Dois Desertos is informed by films such as The Model Shop, directed by French filmmaker Jacques Demy and released at the turn of the 1970s, as well as the essay film Los Angeles Plays Itself, by Thom Andersen, released in 2003. Both works examine the ways in which the city reveals itself and its atmosphere—whether as an anonymous backdrop or when the city itself becomes the focus.
“Coming from Europe, my impression of Los Angeles is very specific. There is a utopian vision of what the city is supposed to be and of how the people who pass through it live,” João says. “This album engages with cultural references and with the confrontation experienced by someone arriving here for the first time. It is something you see from a distance, and that idea can be very expressive. What interests me is continuing to reflect on what is utopian and how it can be made tangible.”
Coinciding with the album’s release, João Pimenta Gomes will also open his new exhibition, New Age, on October 1 at the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT) in Lisbon. Conceived as an extension of the ideas explored in the album, the exhibition marks his second presentation at the institution. “The connection between the exhibition and this album is that both stem from the same instrument, the crystal baschet, and from the same studio practice. In the exhibition, I use the metal ‘petals’ to play with vocal sounds and to perform a new piece I am composing. Everything revolves around this instrument, taking the cristal baschet apart in both contexts,” he explains.
In the end, João Pimenta Gomes’ new LP offers an immersive listening experience, revealing a more exploratory side of his work while also reflecting the vision of the Amor in Sound record label, which seeks to release original projects in dialogue with different languages of music and contemporary art. Moving between improvisation and composition, between the tangible experience of a city and the image of it shaped from afar, Dois Desertos transforms encounters and perceptions into sound, remaining open to shifts in perspective and the possibilities of interpretation with each listen.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
João Pimenta Gomes (Lisbon, 1989) is a visual artist and musician who lives and works in Lisbon. He studied Music Production, Photography and Drawing and was an invited lecturer in Sound and Image at the School of Arts (Escola das Artes) da Universidade Católica do Porto. His practice draws on references from the musical field and explores the relationships between space and the body through the manipulation of modular synthesisers, images, videos and objects. His works create experiences which explore the proximity and tensions between the analogical and the digital, the sensorial and the conceptual. Through performances and live events the artist expands these experiences to the audience who, by coming in contact with the works, observes the process of creation of the musical idea and sonic composition, making their body – its approximation, removal or modelling – a central element in the creation of the works.
His projects, performances and exhibition include: Dois Stereos at Galeria da Boavista, 2025; Line Array at Casa da Cerca, 2025; Last sounds at Galeria Vera Cortês, 2024; Love Cry, Central Artística de Bueño (EDP Foundation), Bueño, 2023; Two Virgins, Gnration, Braga, 2023; Esfíngico Frontal (curated by Germano Dushá), Galeria Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo, 2023; Poly-Free, MAAT – Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia, Lisbon, 2022; Alto Mar / Metavox, Palácio Nacional de Belém, Lisbon and Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, Aubervilliers, 2022; Doppelganger III, Sound & Future, Plataforma Revólver, Lisbon, 2022; and Doppelganger VII, Lux Frágil, Lisbon, 2022; Clouds, Kunstraum Botschaft, Berlin, 2021; while a member of the group Matéria Simples with which he also created A Ilha de Calipso, Appleton Garagem, Lisbon, 2020; and Micro Resonances (Appleton Box, Lisbon, 2020).
