Tim Bernardes

The tender and luminous songs that Brazil’s Tim Bernardes sings are the result of 60 years of cross-continental musical exchange, a kind of global psychedelic triangle formed by South America, North America, and Europe. He pairs the Tropicália and samba of his native São Paulo with the effortless melodicism of the Beatles and the textural splendor of the indie folk that abounded in the States when he was a young musician, like Fleet Foxes and Devendra Banhart. Bernardes’ father was a member of Os Mulheres Negras. When his parents noticed he loved running the record player and seeing concerts, they dispatched him to music lessons, where he steadily started to realize that making music was the future he needed, too. He started a popular Brazilian rock band, O Terno, made three records, and toured heavily. In 2017, he released a sprawling and byzantine solo debut, Recomeçar, before returning to the full-band fold.

But after touring and then going into the pandemic, Bernardes, then nearing 30, thought about what he wanted from life and music, about how there was more to art than the grind. His exquisite 2022 album, Mil Coisas Invisíveis, emerged from that period of reflection. Over refulgent horns and ascending piano, he sang of the release that a breakup can foster on “Leve.” The soulful and seductive “Última Vez” found him reconnecting with an old love he thought he’d lost, stunned to revisit former feelings and memories as they listened to the Beatles or Os Mutantes, Bernardes relaying the experience over acoustic guitars that first seemed to cradle and then goad him along. And on the exquisite “Realmente Lindo,” his voice riding a roller-coaster of falsetto, Bernardes attempts to chase away his own blues, handclaps punctuating strings that sing alongside him. Bernardes wrote, arranged, and played most everything on Mil Coisas Invisíveis, a testament to his belief in these lessons and their tunes, in the power of these great songs to change the light in the room.