Summer has arrived in Europe. And with it, we have our summer dreams, the desire for those long days, with no end in sight, with friends, boy, and girlfriends, family, companions, whatever you want. To go to the beach, garden, summer festivals, live music. Of dancing, until the sun goes down…and, suddenly, rising again.
We miss that feeling of living on the edge.
Who doesn’t miss that rising rhythm that, almost effervescently, fills our soul, head, torso, hands, legs, and feet? Of feeling goosebumps with that first, second, third, fourth beer?
As we walk around hoping to get back to doing everything we could and even more, we get a few touches of how happy we were – and what we will still be. Not being able to go to discos, smaller rooms, whatever you want to call them, we dance wherever we can, be it in the street, on the beach, at home. Our dance floor is now the one where our imagination takes us. No bouncers or mixtures of that kind. Entry and passes are free. Everyone is invited to enter.
And it’s with this motto that we put our feet down again and start dancing. Meet stckman and his first album.
stckman
Looking at the name, stckman, it can be perfectly confused with stickman, a simple doll that we can all draw, with the normal physiognomy of a human being. From puppet to the human being, we have Nuno, a visionary rebel who has Lisbon as his residence. From the age of 15 to the present day, he has released various singles and eps that have slowly caught the attention with their electrifying rhythms, which leave no one indifferent.
And we’ve reached D-Day. Or rather S. Because the biggest leap is now taken, with stckman in…”stckman“, his first album.
Loose body and free spirit? Get ready for a 32-minute journey, with ten helmet-shaking songs.
We start off with “uno“. And a masterful entrance that cheers up any Scorsese fan. We hear, on loop, the phrase “You don’t make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit and you know it.”, uttered by Charlie (Harvey Keitel), in the film Mean Streets. The perfect symbiosis takes place with an eloquent beat, which forces us to move to the most complicated point of our body. For moments, it reminds us of Xinobi in his album On The Quiet.
Smoothly, the transition is made to “under control“, and in a rhythm that promises us to relive those perfect nights on our favorite dance floor, we start to put our feet on the floor to the rhythm of a beautiful voice, that whispers to us, in a sensual way, several motivational words that take us to a state of supreme happiness, of moving until no more. The atmosphere was indeed… out of control.
In “time w u” we team up with stckman and Kyle Quest (Diogo Braga), drummer of excellence in the psychedelic rock band Zanibar Aliens and who, on his solo project, unfolds a deep and irreverent voice that promises not to leave us indifferent. And it is in this mix of rhythms, which reminds us of Moullinex in Carnival, that we are surrendered. The music we were missing this summer, for sure.
From time w u to “high” is four minutes, and with a honeyed voice that definitely wants us to it, we definitely feel like reaching the sky.
Halfway through this section, “af radio (interlude)“. Remember those long radio sessions in the early hours of the morning? Here’s the perfect stretch for that nostalgic feeling.
We move on. And with “Cup of Tea” we return to a collaboration with Kyle. And it’s on this Quest that we have a more intimate rhythm, pressing deep into the keys and the more techno beat, where we shake our heads even without understanding why we’re doing it. This is what we want to have and hear live, definitely.
In “droptop” we joined Silier (Simen Eriksen), Norwegian electronic music producer, and Stevedreez (Stephen Dries), from Virginia, USA to the beat, and the synergy is evident: three countries, two continents, all in the same boat looking for the perfect formula to create the music we all want to hear. And it is with distinction that they overcome this barrier: it is fresh, danceable, with a balanced rhythm and all the perfect elements to envy the greatest of the electronic industry.
Moving at a fast pace – and again with Kyle with us – we have “blow my mind” – another song that won’t leave our radio while we travel along the seaside between Lisbon and Cascais.
Collaborations and more collaborations? That’s the way we roll with stckman. And now we get Kyle and Stevedreez together, on the song “automatic“. And everything is right when they all want the same thing: to produce quality, danceable music that, at any moment, will be at a NOS Alive spreading their charm into the night. A must.
We went to the bottom of the sea, we advanced on land – and suddenly we were up in the sky. And it’s on our arrival in outer space that we have “space disco“: an endless world of rhythms and beats that leave us with our heads, definitely, on the moon. If Elon Musk wants to take us to Mars, Stckman simulates this type of crossing with a hymn to electronic music.
He came, he saw, he won. Stckman has electronics in his veins, and electronics accompany him to the most difficult paths. Thirty-two minutes that could be hours, and hours, and hours. Because Nuno has just that: a gift for leaving us glued to the dance floor until the early hours. A WtMM recommendation.