This duo with Lelo Nazario reflects a conception about music of a lengthy trajectory. It began when we played together with Hermeto Pascoal in the 1970s and, soon after, when we founded Grupo Um, which developed an even more complex language than Hermeto’s. Grupo Um was a learning experience for me, including in relation to free language, and it became a very important element of my work as a performer.

The recordings in this album date from the 1990s and 2018, and had no destination until now. When I listened to them after all these years, I just realized that this material remains modern, rich, interesting. So much so that there is no difference between the tune “Quintal da Memória,” from 2018 on which Lelo added some elements now, and the material recorded previously. It seems that everything was created at the same time. My impression is that all the material managed to pass through time very well.

Lelo masterfully recovered and rearranged all the compositions by adding modern synthesizers. Such a fusion of electronic instruments with acoustic bass is very interesting because it is rare, unusual. And also because it results in a contemporary music rich in timbres and sounds. I really like this sum of timbres. It expresses our musical conception and our search for expressiveness beyond borders.

Zeca Assumpção, Sept. 2022


Much of the music included in this album was originally recorded by me and Zeca Assumpção in my UTOPIA Studio, in São Paulo, in 1994, as well some material recorded by him in Rio years later. As we listened to these recordings now, in 2022, a desire came to release an album to bring together this noteworthy and expressive repertoire, which remained out of sight for close to thirty years.

The album introduces eight previously unreleased compositions in their original recordings, featuring Zeca on acoustic bass and me on my then newly acquired Ensoniq TS-12. In the process of preparing the tracks for this release, I’ve added new state-of-the-art synth sounds – analog and virtual – alongside the piano. In my opinion Zeca is one of the greatest bass players on the planet, a performer with a unique sound, whose enormous expressiveness can be heard on these recordings.

“Depois do Silêncio” (After Silence) celebrates almost fifty years of our friendship and musical affinity, which began well before Grupo Um, which we founded in 1975. The album title could be an allusion to all these years of pause in our partnership in music, but in fact it is a reference to a phrase by writer Aldous Huxley, which says “after silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” I would complement it by saying that certain music have the quality of expressing the inexpressible much more than others, especially those that expand the sound of musical instruments, so opening new horizons in the minds of listeners.

Lelo Nazario, Sept. 2022