Can you feel it? It’s that time of the year again when the heat of summer blends with the cool of fall. It’s this brief season I lovingly call, “late summer“. And nothing signals this change better than the kind of music, I think, I can share to take you there. Music that captures the relaxing, easy-going spirit of this time couched in a certain bit of nostalgia, music much like Heitor Teixeira Pereira’s Heitor TP that lives in this floating, circular feeling.
First of all, before I dig into the album, can I share a bit of good news? While researching Heitor’s work I stumbled upon a welcome surprise while searching for critical reviews of the album: Tomoyuki Fujii is back sharing music he enjoys.
For those that don’t know, Fujii-san was the main person behind the impressive Mori To Kiroku No Ongaku (Post-Ambient) blog. Now, I don’t want to speak for him, but what I found impressive about his site was his focus on what could constitute “ambient” music. From the New Age movement to pastoral folk and experimental drone and more, whether made in Japan or elsewhere, Tomoyuki understood that ambient music was less static than its stereotype.
From around 2012 onwards, it was always a blessing to visit his site and discover something new or a different perspective in similar music I enjoyed, as I felt we were critical listeners cut from similar cloth. Then in 2020, Tomoyuki decided to call it a day and stop posting, and I stopped visiting, realizing it’s time to move on.
Unknown to me, in 2025, inspired by listening to archived copies of St.GiGA radio shows, admirably, Tomoyuki decided to come back and center his listening on “blue-themed” music, to not feel tethered to genres anymore, to post about music that simply feels of a specific color. It appears that in January, 2026, Fujii-san after hearing Heitor’s music “sandwiched between Gontiti’s ‘UPC’ and Michael Franks’s ‘Vincent’s Ear'” felt compelled to share “Unreal”, a song featuring Heitor’s sophisticated, flowing, and pleasant instrumentals. Somehow, Heitor’s music felt appropriate for Tomoyuki’s relaunched, rehoned, curation.
So today, I’m pleased to realize that we’re once again riding the same wavelength. There’s something impressive about Heitor’s early work that warrants a reintroduction.
Before the arc of history deemed Heitor would end up being an in-demand composer, soundtracking huge movies like Despicable Me or Rango, there was a young, green and very eager kid from Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil who adored music in a way that was different from his peers. At age 14, Heitor picked up his first guitar and instantly felt a bond, metaphorically, turning the instrument inside out, learning and playing as much as he could, feeling inspired by his teacher and friends to expand his influences beyond homegrown musical artists and styles. From Stravinsky to Villa-Lobos to Hermeto Pascoal and Captain Beefheart, Heitor was fortunate in adolescence to be exposed to such music. Then when he was old enough to know better, he received an offer to attend Boston’s Berklee College of Music, only to realize that his parents could not afford to pay for his schooling.
In what sounds like a huge leap of faith, Heitor’s father sold his only car and Heitor his only guitar to buy a ticket, putting him on a cargo ship alongside shoes and lobsters, en route to Boston to set in motion his dream, against so many odds. It was in Berklee while taking private lessons that he befriended a lot of teachers, teachers with huge music histories behind them, that would invite Heitor to be part of their bands, trading session work for real-life music knowledge, slowly allowing him to carve his space in the music industry.
With time, Heitor would come back to Brazil and appear as an in-demand musician appearing as a guitarist for such huge MPB (Musica Popular Brasileira) artists like Ivan Lins, Djavan, and Milton Nascimento. Then, as his talents became more known, foreign artists like Sadao Watanabe and Simply Red would catch his wind and invite him to perform, until Simply Red made him a permanent member, becoming its lead guitarist starting in 1988, replacing original guitarist Sylvan Richardson.
Heitor’s enthusiasm to try different styles, genres, and ideas, must have ingrained other musicians’ desire to work with him and facilitate his own dreams and vision. Heitor’s 1987 debut on EMI felt of that era, when MPB was trying to find its footing in the world of New Wave and glossy ’80s sophistication. One can’t fault him for taking a while to feel comfortable enough to explore a different direction.
Heitor TP was recorded in 1993 and released the following year, in the gap between the recording cycles that birthed Simply Red’s Stars and Life, in studios strewn across London, Rio, L.A., and his own home in Niteroi, across the bay from Rio de Janeiro. In stolen hours on the Stars tour, Heitor had spoken with fellow Simply Red bandmate, drummer, Gota Yashiki, sharing their dreams. Back then, seeds were planted of solo records and demos were shared but they could never find time to follow through. Eventually, in 1993, Gota would be the first to take the plunge, inviting Heitor to participate in sessions for what became Somethin’ To Talk About. Then Gota would reciprocate, working closely with Heitor to get his own ideas across the finish line, to record Heitor’s second solo record, a rebirth of sorts.
In Japanese liner notes, Gota described Heitor’s music sounding as gentle as the Brazilian sun and breeze. Hearing certain tracks on the record, one can’t but agree…this is music that is full of languid beauty. Surprisingly, EastWest, who released this record in Europe and Asia, released its opening track, “Ligeirin”, as a single. While the original track had a decidedly uptempo, WOMAD-esque vibe, highlighting Heitor’s impressive pan-cultural technical chops, remixes of the track from the likes of 808 State, Mark Brydon and others, added beats and grooves, transforming it into a danceclub earworm.
As cool as those remixes were, lost in the single was the mood of genuinely warm and inviting slower-paced music that one would hear on the album.
Songs like the gently unfurling sophisticated balladry of “Infinity” find that great fusion of MPB and downtempo soul, built on the back of Heitor’s wonderful vocals and his mix of guitar and atmospheric electronic sounds played on keyboards and guitar synthesizer. “River of Life (Mara’s Theme)” an even more languid ballad takes his melodic talents elsewhere, using the London Session Orchestra to fill the spaces his guitar holds back on.
My favorite tracks on Heitor TP are tracks like “Mal da Lua”, atmospheric Balearic tracks, that sound like a close conversation between two dear friends trying to find the vocabulary to do so. And in this case, it’s Gota on drums and percussion and Heitor on guitar synthesizer and scat vocals, stretching out of time, meditating on something special. Not quite jazz or quietly not jazz or ambient music, its Brazilian music distilled into another essence.
Going forward, another track, “Pulsar” shares a similar esoteric connection to Heitor’s past. This time around, close friend and Brazilian bassist Arthur Maia matches the gently probing mood of the music, giving a blue sound to the track, to borrow the feeling from Tomoyuki. Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall and Ian Kirkham would contribute to “Manchester”, a track allowing all involved to rock out for a beat. However, we must get back to what we’re here for.
It’s those gentle, sun-kissed, atmospheric songs like “Unreal” featuring Chucho Merchan, the Colombian bassist heard elsewhere with Eurythmics and Pete Townshend, and Gota. Another wordless but not voiceless quasi-ambient MPB song that feels like it’s approximating a tone poem on the babbling brook or a lullaby for an endless summer.
Whenever I linger on the album cover and the album’s design I’m reminded of infinity. I’m reminded that everything always ends up coming back to its beginnings. There was a time long ago, decades ago, when my love of Brazilian music inspired a very old version of this blog and I too left it, until I came back for another reason. Whenever I hear songs like “Unreal” or “Marcha do Tempo” I’m reminded that it’s important to turn the mirror back on yourself, that music like this never really leaves you, nor should it, it just takes time to reach you at this point in your life. For that, I’m grateful.
Cindy Palmano, who photographed Tori Amos’s Little Earthquakes, perfectly captured this essence in the dreamy visuals for Heitor TP. In black and white, a small boy sleeps inside a cello balanced on an endpin. A young girl, Mara (perhaps?), appears in color inside the booklet, curled around a watermelon. Somewhere Heitor sleeps next to a guitar, somewhere he appears buried under a pile of guitars, somewhere Heitor sits on a plinth, barefoot, holding an electric guitar. Somewhere, sits that same young boy on a plinth, barefoot, pictured holding a toy guitar and a tangled cable. In the end, it’s an echo of a dream, musician as child, childhood as muse. It’s blue.
On certain days, I remember when I was young enough to know primary colors were the perfect way to describe music.
