Live at Culturgest, February 2026
Just saw Bruno Pernadas at Culturgest presenting unlikely, maybe, his first album in five years since Private Reasons (2021). Seven to nine musicians on stage, rotating depending on the track — and the sound was clear and well-balanced throughout, which matters when you have that many people sharing a stage.
The Band
The full ensemble included Bruno on guitars, synths and vocals, backed by António Quintino (electric/double bass), João Correia (drums), José Diogo Martins (Rhodes, synthesizers), Jéssica Pina (trumpet, flugelhorn, vocals), Maria João Leite (alto saxophone, vocals), Teresa Costa (flute, vocals), Afonso Cabral (vocals, guitars), and Leonor Arnaut as guest vocalist.
Leonor Arnaut Was the Surprise
Leonor Arnaut genuinely surprised me. She studied jazz vocals at Escola Superior de Musica de Lisboa — the same school where Pernadas got his degree — and you can hear that training in how she navigates his compositions. She’s part of the Lisbon collective Fumo Ninja and released her debut single “Vida Cega” in late 2025. On unlikely, maybe she features on two tracks — “Spiritual Spaceman” and “Leo Minor” (the latter alongside Margarida Campelo) — and live, her voice brought a warmth and presence that elevated those pieces beyond what I expected. She’s one to watch.
The Afonso Cabral Connection
Afonso Cabral is the voice and creative force behind You Can’t Win, Charlie Brown, one of the fundamental Portuguese indie bands of the last decade. Their latest album Ambar (2022) hit #1 in Portugal and marked their shift to singing in Portuguese. What fascinates me about the connection is how both Cabral and Pernadas sit in that same Lisbon ecosystem where indie rock, jazz, and experimental music aren’t separate scenes — they’re the same people, playing in each other’s bands, cross-pollinating constantly. Cabral brings a Sufjan Stevens / Bon Iver melancholy to his own work, and hearing him contribute vocals and guitar to Pernadas’ more exploratory compositions was a beautiful collision.
How unlikely, maybe Compares to the Rest
Bruno Pernadas has always been a shapeshifter, but each album has a distinct centre of gravity:
- How Can We Be Joyful in a World Full of Knowledge (2014) — The debut. Jazz fusion foundations with space-age pop flourishes, already genre-restless but still rooted in instrumental interplay.
- Those Who Throw Objects at the Crocodiles Will Be Asked to Retrieve Them (2016) — Vamp and loop-driven jazz, more compositionally adventurous. The titles alone tell you this is someone who refuses to be boring.
- Worst Summer Ever (2016) — A jazz album through and through. Stripped of the pop framing, this is Pernadas at his most uncompromising.
- Private Reasons (2021) — The breakthrough. Lighter on jazz, heavier on psychedelia. Tropicalia vibes, shimmering string sections (his first time using them), vocals in multiple languages. Sunny, warm, optimistic — his most accessible and euphoric record.
- unlikely, maybe (2026) — Five years later, and the pieces are more concise than before. There’s a Sun Ra-influenced exploratory jazz quality from “Campus on Fire” onward, but the pop sensibility from Private Reasons hasn’t disappeared — it’s been absorbed into something more confident and less eager to please. The collaborations with Leonor Arnaut, Maya Blandy, Livia Nestrovski, and Margarida Campelo give it a more vocal and communal character than anything he’s done before.
What I notice across the discography is a pendulum swing: jazz roots → pop expansion → jazz return, but each time the pendulum comes back it brings something new from the other side. unlikely, maybe feels like the most balanced position yet — neither pure jazz nor pop-psych, but something that holds both without tension.
That Allah-Las Vibe
Some tracks on unlikely, maybe gave me a distinct Allah-Las feeling — that reverb-drenched, sun-bleached psychedelia where the 60s never really ended. Allah-Las are a Los Angeles band who blend surf rock washes with folk-rock jangle and a softened, approachable take on psych — imagine the long-lost lovechild of The Beach Boys and The Doors. Their music extends to infinity in this dreamy, unhurried way.
Certain moments in the new Pernadas record — especially the guitar textures and that warm, hazy atmosphere — hit the same nerve. It makes sense: both operate in that space where psychedelia isn’t about effects pedals and chaos but about letting songs breathe and shimmer. The difference is that Pernadas layers jazz sophistication underneath, while Allah-Las keep things garage-raw and jangly. But the sun is the same sun.
The Kikagaku Moyo Connection (or: How Versatile Is This Guy?)
Here’s a detail that says everything about Pernadas’ range: in 2018 he produced Masana Temples, the fourth album by Japanese psych band Kikagaku Moyo (幾何学模様). They recorded it at Valentim de Carvalho studio in Lisbon — the band specifically sought Pernadas out, both because they admired his music and because they wanted a producer from a completely different musical background.
Kikagaku Moyo are one of the most thrilling psychedelic rock bands of the last decade — a Tokyo-formed five-piece who blend acid-folk, krautrock, Indian raga, and full-blown space rock into extended improvisations that feel both ancient and futuristic. Think Can meets Ravi Shankar in a Tokyo basement. Their name literally means “geometric patterns,” and that’s exactly what their music does — creates hypnotic, interlocking shapes that shift and morph over time. They’ve got the motorik pulse, the droning sitar, the extended guitar freakouts, and an almost meditative patience in how their songs unfold.
The fact that a Portuguese jazz-psych composer could step into a Japanese psych-rock band’s world and produce one of their most focused and refined albums tells you everything about Pernadas’ ear. Masana Temples sharpened both the attentive folk side and the wild-eyed rocking side of Kikagaku Moyo — Pernadas understood how to challenge their idea of what psychedelic music could be, precisely because he comes at psychedelia from such a different angle.
It’s the same versatility I heard at Culturgest: a musician who can hold jazz fusion, tropicalia, Sun Ra explorations, Allah-Las shimmer, and Japanese psych-rock production credits in the same career without any of it feeling forced.
Artist: Bruno Pernadas Album: unlikely, maybe (2026) Performed: Culturgest, Lisbon, February 2026
Key connections:
- Leonor Arnaut — jazz vocalist, Fumo Ninja, debut single “Vida Cega” (2025)
- Afonso Cabral — You Can’t Win, Charlie Brown, solo albums Morada and Demorar
- Kikagaku Moyo — Pernadas produced Masana Temples (2018) at Valentim de Carvalho, Lisbon
- Allah-Las — sun-bleached LA psych-surf that shares a vibe with some tracks on unlikely, maybe
- All connected through the Lisbon jazz/indie/psych ecosystem