Benjamin edits album back to simplicity “Cronics of Mount Zeus”

To the fifth album, which will have digital and physical edition, Benjamin (Luís Nunes) returns to its origins, to the first works he edited, which “were records of songs”.

“ I think it is the format that most matches me”, he said in an interview with Lusa, recalling that he did “many explorations in the meantime”.

Musician, composer and producer, Benjamin has been over the years “always experimenting with what the song is and how far you can stretch the song format until you release an instrumental six-minute single.”.

“This here [‘Cronics of Mount Zeus’] is a return to that origin of simplicity, of grabbing a guitar, joining with friends in a room and playing songs, rewriting and writing them. It is a return to origins, [...] the idea of the musician making music with his instrument ", said.

The technology also enters this work, “obviously associated with recording a disc”. Benjamin only wanted “not to be a filter for the songs.”.

The eight songs that make up the album are all different, “about different things, about different spirits, but that end up having a lot in common”.

“ They are kind of almost archaeological records, recent, of phases of my life, of transition at a personal level as well. There were great moments of transition in my life. This phase began about two years ago and I was collecting songs”, shared.

The album combines “songs that made sense to each other” and ends up telling a story, by the way their alignment was thought.

Although there is a connection between them, Benjamin's idea was that each song would survive alone.

The lyrics contain “much reflection, very ironic as well”, about the musician’s career. “The idea of work is very present on the record, and the idea of love. And the idea that love gives work, because everything really takes work ", he said.

Living in a time when anyone can create songs using Artificial Intelligence also made Benjamin reflect on his work.

“The idea of career, of reaching 40 and ‘what am I going to do’. All the news we've heard, the world imploding. And yes, it does [feeling to create music], because music saves us, because music makes me extremely happy. It's the place I've always run all my life. Whether of the problems, because he wanted to travel, or at night, when he could not sleep ", he said.

In “Cronicas do Monte Zeus”, Benjamin shares the production for the first time, and it was “very important” to have the musician João Correia, who is part of the band accompanying him, with whom to share the task.

“I had already done some half-produced work with him, but not a record of mine. It's the person I've been playing with the longest, the people I've been playing with, we have a very strong complicity and friendship. We are both very stubborn, very determined, with very strong opinions. And I missed being with someone in the studio and there was this tension of the decision ", told.

Sharing the production with someone else “brings much doubt, but sure, it also brings other solutions, experimentation, discovery, travel, friendship, conversations, lunches, dinners, leaving the studio at two in the morning completely ruined”.

“ All these things that are very important. I think that music wins when there are more ideas, but there has to be a very special relationship between these two people, personally and creatively ", he said.

The album will be performed live on a club tour, which starts on October 17 at Barreiro (in Sala 6) and also includes dates in Coimbra (November 6th at Salão Brazil), in Lisbon (12 November at Lux), in Porto (14 November at Plan B), in Leiria (November 21st at Texas Club) and Freamunde (28 November at Route 66).

The option for smaller rooms is primarily that “Cronics of Mount Zeus” is “a much more naked disc”.

“ My live band is a very large structure, lots of keyboards, lots of guitar, lots of junk, because it had to do with the records I had made before. And there was a process of exhaustion, of exhaustion. I don't want to do this anymore. I miss taking the guitar and playing. One, two, three, four to play. And the best places to do this are clubs ", justified.

In addition, it is also a question of “militancy, of wanting to cultivate a kind of circuit”.

Benjamin made the songs for himself, because he needs “to write music to live”, but the songs, “obviously, have a recipient, who are the people, the public”, who in the clubs are closer to the artists.

“ I miss finishing the concert, getting off the stage and people being there and coming to us to say they liked the record and the concert, or they didn't like it. The idea of the song is to go play Freamunde, Coimbra, Porto, Lisbon, Barreiro a Leiria, all the places where we go. That's what music is supposed to do. We are supposed to go from earth to earth to play and take music to people”, he said.

On stage, besides Benjamin will be musicians João Correia, Nuno Lucas and Ricardo Velhote do Carmo.