2010. Self released in tape.
orders: branchesbranches@gmail.com

Music by Branches. Some samples have been found and worked by Miguel Carvalho.

Words by André Gomes:

Branches has something of nomad. He wasn't born to stay in the same place. There's little (or even nothing) left of the embryonic recordings, other than an excavating will/determination of exploring the darkest corners of sound.

But even in this something has changed. In Alto Astral, conveniently released on tape, there is a slow but candid opening of windows to the sun and the light, a stretching out of toes towards the warm sands of the beach, a perfectly healthy flirt with the melodic beats and flavours of the 80s.

All this with crafty cut and paste aesthetics, an abuse of minor samples (in a sinful collab between Pedro Rios and Miguel Carvalho), and and acknowledgement of the remains of a certain pop, so many times mistreated and rejected, doomed to end up in cardboard boxes brimming with old LPs for less than 5 euros.

Entering Alto Astral is also putting on repeat those 10 best seconds of the Caribbean LP we found in the attic in the holiday house, it's admitting to like that melody of dubious taste, it's finding life in keyboards kept forever in closets up to the top with memories, it's like watching life slowly unfurl in front of our eyes.

Entering Alto Astral is seeing Branches reinventing himself while going with the tide, arm in arm with the beats and melodies we thought were lost forever. To see the entrance of the sun.