After finishing my The Party’s Over works, I decided to do a remake of Dark Blue Moonlight, because the original version of that album, which came out in 2018, I was not very convinced with the final result, the mixing was way too compressed, less dynamic, too muffled, my singing was so off key, almost untrained, it didn’t sound all that great, my songwriting skills were run of the mills, they could have done much better. That's why I decided to introduce improvements both in the lyrics and in the musical structures, revisiting “Dark Blue Moonlight” and giving into a more focused. Similar to how Car Seat Headrest recovered the songs from the "Twin Fantasy" album (which had originally been made available by bandcamp in 2011, and recently re-recorded and edited in 2018). That doesn’t mean the original is going to be deleted. It’s called evolution. So I’ve got two now.
This is going to be originals only, not covers.

Dark Blue Moonlight is not much of an autobiographical album, far from it, it’s kind of like a mixture of themes in different aspects. It’s much more personal to say the least. It reflects by my childhood memories when I listen to music, in times before YouTube, whether it’s on the radio or video games (licensed music still exists since the days of Gran Turismo, Wipeout, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and Grand Theft Auto) or MTV (back in the day it stood for Music Television before the appearance of bullshit reality shows that no one cares about). In musical terms, it resembles the elements of 90s alt-rock, late 70s punk, post-punk, new wave and some prog rock / psych rock in each songs.
This album contains 14 themes of not just cinema references, but remembrances of dreams, obsessions and mistakes from the past during my childhood and youth as well as serious topics like wildfires and the reaction of crime scenes on tv.

The album cover was designed by myself after searching images from google to give me inspiration. It represents the image of a black cat looking at the dark blue moonlight at night sky while standing on top of the hill.

The song Troubled Girl, originally written in 2014, was inspired by the 17 year old girl, named Margarida Ferreira, I knew in my high school days, I was 20 at the time, in 12th grade, I’ve always sympathized with her, I found her very confident. After introducing ourselves, we went to the library, as my old friend Margarida was having difficulties with her math exercises. I helped her understand the statement of the work she had to do. I found her very friendly and, like me, studious.
In my class at school, I didn't have many friends to talk to because they were quite stupid, irritating and not very talkative, they just wanted to spend time instead of studying. The following week, after doing the work that counted for the evaluations, we met again and continued to talk.
After that we became very good friends and continued to meet several times until the end of the year.
We had very interesting long conversations about things we both liked. We had philosophical discussions on many subjects. We talked about music, travel, study, our experiences, etc. After finishing my professional course, I didn't see my friend again.
Sometimes i missed her and our conversations. She was not troubled at all as the title of the song suggests, I was just joking because the word “trouble” really speaks to me, since I was listening to the song “Little Trouble Girl” by Sonic Youth.

Ghost House, originally written in 2014, is the first song I wrote, along with Troubled Girl, when I made the “scrapped” first ep because I was not happy the way I sing in the final mix so I decided to do a revisit with more modest. Lyrically, it deals to my first experience of worst nightmares I’ve had. That’s normal, it happens to all individuals. It’s difficult to interpret what I was dreaming about. That was a long time ago that I couldn’t remember why. You cannot understand what’s going on inside the dream. You’re scared and you got nothing to do with it. All you have to do is get rid of it.

Stars In My Eyes Clouds In My Head, originally written in 2018, is my personal song I’ve ever wrote. It describes what I feel about myself (the mistakes i made) during my youth as well as my ambition to become a professional and get things right. It is also about constellations or stars (which I became obsessed with) after reading Astronomy book, written by Carl Sagan entitled “Cosmos”. Both of these levels worked in this concept.

The song Factory, originally written in 2018, is an ode to my first visit to LX Factory in Lisbon, because I’ve been fascinated by art design. I’m attending at visual arts atelier, since a couple years ago. Drawings or paintings, besides music, are also important to me because they give me a whole lot of inspiration and also the basic stage of observation and execution. First, before starting to draw, I take pictures with an iPhone. Later, I put the photo in the Word document on color image or black and white on an A3 or A4 sheet. And then I print. Then I draw on an A3 or A4 sheet (horse paper type) through observation drawing. First with a charcoal pencil or pen or color pencil of various types, some thinner and some thicker, some with more charcoal and others with less charcoal, some to make the areas lighter and others to make the areas darker to give a contrast between light and shadow. And finally my signature and the year in which the drawing was made and completed. Much like the music, during the post production, this type of work really is part of my “factory”.

Lighthouse, originally written in 2018, was inspired by my visit to Farolim de Felgueiras, in Porto (where my mother was born). It was raining in early June 2018 when I first wrote this song. I visited in Porto various times, mainly because of Primavera Sound music festival, and I loved it.

It’s Snowing Everywhere, originally written in 2015-2017, was such a difficult song to write and sing. It didn’t sound all that great on first takes in the original version. The process of making this song was very exhaustive. Musically it took the elements of my old song that I was not happy about, “Boy On The Moon” (which is just a recreation of “It’s Snowing Everywhere“). I kept two separate pieces that I like, rewrote it to come up with It’s Snowing Everywhere and it worked very well. So, thumbs up. Lyrically, it is inspired by me’s watching the film “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”. As far as the acting goes it's just second to none. The performances are absolute killer. No cliches. The plot is just so unique. Very touching. It holds a special place in my heart. Basically represents everything I love about this film. So I decided to rewrite some parts of the film that identified me so much.
“Clementine falls in love with Joel because Joel has locked away a mysterious depth into his mind that Clementine wants to know about and Joel falls in love with Clementine because someone has shown a deep interest in knowing him. Later on, she is impulsive and erased Joel because she was angry with him, and he then did it out of hurt and spite. However, as his memories start to crumble and fade, he realizes that he’s made a mistake.” - mrzeecon.medium.com/the-desire-to-forget-someone-and-the-eternal-sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind-4741d44c2711.

Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, originally composed in 2014-2015, is an only instrumental tune on Dark Blue Moonlight. After listening to The Durutti Column’s “Amigos Em Portugal” (the title track from the album) on some independent radio station and being fascinated by it, I didn’t want to sound like them, it was not my musical inspiration during the making of this song. Originally it was called “Mosteiro dos Jerónimos à noite”, which I instantly borrowed the title of the Durutti song “Estoril à noite“ that reminded me of that album i mentioned before and making it something significant. Later it was changed shortly to “Mosteiro dos Jerónimos”.

A Quiet Place, not related to the movie with the same name, originally written in 2015 before the movie came out (in 2018), is a much of a tribute to the TV show called Twin Peaks. It blew my mind the first time I watched, it brought me to tears in my eyes. I was 17 years old, the original series was released in 1990 (my year of birth). Seriously who doesn’t like David Lynch? Confusion, surrealism, mystery, non linear plot points, dreamlike and weirdness are part of his trademark films. The more I watch the better. And the soundtrack by the composer Angelo Badalamenti (RIP) (with or without the singer Julee Cruise (RIP)) was absolutely fantastic.

Vincent Malloy, originally written in 2018, the song was inspired by the short film directed by Tim Burton, "Vincent" from 1982. I remember when I was doing an internship at Digital Mix (a company that is more involved in the creation of original music, sound design and audio post-production for short films (in animation and in live action) and for advertising), in Saldanha, during my Masters in Musical Arts at the Universidade da Nova in Lisbon, I started to develop the sound of a film using the Nuendo software. And the option chosen was the so-called stop motion animation short film that I mentioned before. Actor Vincent Price provided the film's narration. It tells the story of a boy named Vincent Malloy who wanted to be like Vincent Price and was obsessed with the mysterious tales of the writer Edgar Allan Poe. And i liked it very much.

The song Fire Clouds In The Sky, originally written in 2017, deals with serious topics after watching the news about wildfires not just in Pedrogão Grande but the whole world in general and how the orange or red sky makes everything look apocalyptic. I remember when I was 14, me and my father were on vacation in Castro Marim, in the afternoon I was busy playing PS2 games and suddenly, something’s weird was going on, I thought that I smell bacon, but in reality it was a fire near the paternal grandparents’ house. So we decided to get out of there and went to the safe place. It was terrible happening in a non specific way.

Karate Kick, originally written in 2018, demonstrates my fascination of fighting video games, namely Dragon Ball Z and Tekken (a franchise that I absolutely adore since my primary school days).

You Can’t Have It All, originally written in 2017, is basically about the reaction of watching the same old crime scenes that you’ve seen on talk shows every morning on some average cable tv.

The Meaning Of Failure, originally written in 2014-2015, is the most difficult song I’ve ever wrote and composed. Much like It’s Snowing Everywhere, when I started to sing, initially my voice wasn’t all that impressive. So I started again to make it perfect in the mix. Vocally, lyrically and musically. Again, inspired by the film I’ve seen in a long time and I absolutely enjoyed every second of it, “Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind”, in which the main characters Clementine and Joel discovered that their relationship were failed and both of their memories have been erased through a medical procedure.

Scared Of Insects, originally written in 2015, is about the insomnia. I was unable to sleep due to the sound of mosquitoes flying around every night when I was in paternal grandparents’ house in Castro Marim.

During the making of this album, i listened to a lot of R.E.M.'s "Murmur", "Reckoning" and "Automatic For The People", as well as U2's "Achtung Baby" and "The Joshua Tree", The Smashing Pumpkins' "Mellon Collie", David Bowie's "Heroes" and Simple Minds' "New Gold Dream" when it comes to songwriting.

The recordings and productions of the album were made in Pro Tools 12 software at my house, in Lisbon. From the beginning of November 2021 until July 2022.

Recorded: November 2021 - July 2022.
Software: Pro Tools 12
All vocals and instruments by Me (Black Cat).

Influences on Dark Blue Moonlight:
R.E.M., U2, Simple Minds, Neil Young, PJ Harvey, The Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, The Cure, Joy Division/New Order, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Ramones, Green Day, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Depeche Mode, Radiohead, Sonic Youth, Marillion, Buzzcocks, Angelo Badalamenti, Kraftwerk, David Bowie (Berlin-era).