Salt Season

Liner notes

I rented the flat in Setúbal for the summer of 2025 because it was cheap and because I had never stayed anywhere long enough to get bored of it. From the kitchen window you could see the ferry to Tróia and, past the cranes, the edge of the salt pans at Sado.

Most mornings I walked out there before the heat. The salt workers start at five. They rake the crust into low white ridges and leave it to dry, and the whole flat field turns pink when the sun comes up through the haze. Low Sun is that hour, more or less exactly.

The songs came slowly and then all at once in August. In September I took them to Estúdio Valentim with Marta, Ricardo, Joana and Duarte, and we played them live, in one room, for nine days. Almost every vocal on the record is the first or second take. I wanted it to sound like people sitting close together in a hot room, because that is what it was.

Season’s End was the last thing we recorded, at two in the morning on the ninth day. You can hear the fan.