In November, musician António Zambujo will release a new album, “Cidade”, written and composed by Miguel Araújo, which deals with a “somewhat urban-depressive” day-to-day life and will be presented live in February in Lisbon and Porto.
The choice of the title “Cidade”, an album that “is not autobiographical”, “has to do a little with being a person’s life”, António Zambujo told the Lusa news agency.
“In this case, it can be interpreted as the life of the person narrating it, or the life of anyone else, the day-to-day – morning, afternoon, night – in which the songs convey different types of emotions and different states of mind. The idea was a bit like that, life in a city, an urban day-to-day life, kind of urban-depressive, like almost everyone lives. An accompanied solitude, Miguel told me a bit about that,” he explained.
The album is made up of 12 songs which, with the exception of “Sagitário”, recorded by Pedro Flores in 2022, were all written and composed by Miguel Araújo for António Zambujo.
The choice of the songs that make up “Cidade” “was made more or less by two people”.
Miguel Araújo and António Zambujo’s creative process is “more or less permanent”.
“As I only make songs, he [Miguel Araújo] is always sending me lyrics or some unfinished song for me to finish. This sharing of themes is something that happens very often,” he said.
The two musicians reunited on stage this year for a series of voice and guitar concerts in Lisbon, Porto and Ponta Delgada, seven years after they sold out 28 shows at coliseums.
Not included in “Cidade” were “a series of other songs”.
Although the album is produced by Miguel Araújo, all of António Zambujo’s work “has to be more or less flexible and done together”. “In other words, with the intervention of the whole band – which was done by two – and mine too,” he said.
António Zambujo has performed some of the new songs at concerts and the audience’s reaction “has been good”. “New songs are more difficult to assimilate than those we’ve heard many times before, but I like the challenge,” he shared.
The concerts to present “Cidade” – which, like the musician’s most recent album, “Voz e Violão”, from 2021, is an author’s edition – are scheduled for the Lisbon and Porto coliseums, on February 3 and 16, respectively.
