Pedro Ricardo
Oxalá Cante com Tempo
Oxalá Cante com Tempo
Pedro Ricardo returns with a new project of resolute songwriting tenderly interpreted by beloved Portuguese voices
António Zambujo e Ana Margarida Prado
António Zambujo e Ana Margarida Prado
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For the follow up to his 2023 debut album Soprem Bons Ventos, Pedro Ricardo wanted to really write. Whereas in the past scant lyrics would come to him by chance, improvising words to better wrap around a beat, this project started among the pages of Portuguese poets like Ary dos Santos – and then onto pen and paper as Ricardo determined to try his hand. "I've never really connected to poetry before," Ricardo admits. "But I felt the need for it this time."
Musically, Ricardo draws inspiration from the Brazilian universe of singer-songwriting. He temporarily relocated to Rio de Janeiro in early 2025 with the first part of the project already under his belt and the early writings and melodies of the second in hand – and with ears wide open. "For the first three months, it was just me and a guitar," Ricardo recalls. "For the next three, it was me on the road overnights in bonechilling buses, substituting sleep with the same albums on loop – Francis Hime’s self-titled, Edu Lobo’s Missa Breve and, as always, José Mário Branco’s Mudam-se os Tempos Mudam-se as Vontades." For Ricardo, these guiding lessons in self-expression through song, and in composing and arranging, were moving to say the least.
And so this time, for the first time, Pedro Ricardo really did write - not just for the voice, but also the flutes and the strings. He wrote for others to interpret – cellist Carolina Viana, flautists Gil Silva and Edu Moreno, along with celebrated fado and música popular Portuguese singers António Zambujo and Ana Margarida Prado. And of course he reinterpreted their offerings in return, through the signature electronic "tricks" that persist in all of Ricardo's productions.
The result is a stirring and startling yet familiar and instantly timeless collection that confronts head-on the means and motifs alluded to in Ricardo's earlier work – as ever fusing jazz, electronica and Brazilian and Portuguese música popular – but in a way that seeks to urge the artist ever forward.
Looking ahead, the project – which Ricardo felt strongly about releasing this way on double 7" vinyl through his own label Hear, Sense and Feel and under covers of the Sao Paulo-based artist Allan Gandhi – is intended as a prelude to Ricardo's second album. He continues to build on these experiments in songwriting and in instrumental and spatial arranging – including of his own voice. "It's funny, even though these songs are mainly love songs, and they came to me really strong, I often laugh when I sing them because I still can't really understand such sadness coming out of me," Ricardo laughs as he reflects. "Though I am Portuguese and I guess saudade is in our bones." As his song goes, oxalá cante com tempo – hopefully there will be time to sing.
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Portuguese producer and composer Pedro Ricardo's artistry is one defined by fusion. As musician, building on his successful debut album (Soprem Bons Ventos, 2023, Soundway Records), he continues to meld genre, time and space in his ongoing projects, including his work with leading Portuguese fado voices António Zambujo and Ana Margarida Prado (Oxalá Cante com Tempo, 2026, Hear, Sense and Feel Records). As producer, his releases over the years on labels such as Extended Records, 1980Lyfers, Wolf Music and his own Pedro's House reveal an expansive and ever-shifting approach to electronic music rooted in folk and melody. As DJ, known for taking risks with his records he brings a sense of freedom and intensity to the dancefloor, driven by jazz hand in hand with a house and techno that never takes off from their soulful tradition. As performer, his shows unfold dynamically across live film scoring, electronic live sets, and playing guitar with the Pedro Ricardo Trio.