The return of Filho da Mãe is an achievement. Firstly, for himself; and secondly, for all of us, who had been awaiting him for far too long. Having lived, uneasily, through a pandemic that turned into a seemingly endless tunnel, the light that occasionally flickered at the end of it did not always prove real, and would eventually merge into various fictions, bringing with them torment, doubt and uncertainty. At a certain point, it was precisely this lack of judgment regarding what is or isn’t real that ended up serving as inspiration, an uncertainty that multiplied into the very likely chance of releasing several records, somewhere between the acoustic angel and the electronic demon, between drafts written in Alentejo and more drafts written in Lisbon, made up of words with double meanings strummed for hours on end. Inevitably, this wait became an obligation, like a necessary pilgrimage. At the end of it all, Rui admitted to us that postponing this release had been the best possible decision, so that he could come out of that tunnel alive and create, from pain and from time, the music that Filho da Mãe needed to make.