Homem em Catarse

(PT)

At a time when hope seems a scarce commodity, Homem em Catarse insists on dreaming. Last year he announced a new work with'Gueto da Paz', a song in which he joined Luca Argel, Sara Yasmine (Sopa de Pedra, Retimbrar) and Nuno Prata (Ornatos Violeta, Cara de Espelho) to build a refuge where peace is not a vague concept, but an everyday gesture: dancing without fear, hugging those who arrive, opening your heart. ‘If peace is utopia, we should not fear being the world's greatest utopians,’ the musician wrote, in a statement that echoes the spirit of the song: an invitation to emotional resistance in an often dehumanized world. This theme announced‘catarse natural', the album by Homem em Catarse that arrived at the end of last year with ‘10 novas canções que são uma arma’.

Homem em Catarse is the alter ego of Afonso Dorido, a multi-instrumentalist born from the fertile Barcelos music scene, now based in Braga. Founder of the post-rock collective post-rock indignu, he began this solo project in 2013, following an emotional and interventionist path that has taken him from forgotten villages to international stages. In 2015, he gained attention with the EP‘Guarda-Rios’. Two years later, he released‘Viagem Interior’, a concept album about the depths of Portugal, with texts by José Luís Peixoto. In 2020, he released the instrumental‘sem palavras | cem palavras’and surprised in 2021 with‘sete fontes’, an album entirely on piano that established him as one of the most unique voices in new Portuguese music. He has collaborated with names such as Ana Deus, Manel Cruz, Rodrigo Leão and Old Jerusalem, and has been present at festivals such as Paredes de Coura, NOS Alive or Dunk!Festival, in Belgium. With‘catarse natural'. he promises to continue his personal journey, where utopia is not a distant destination — but a possible place, even if just in the corner.