Ópera Nova was founded in 1983 by Luís Beethoven and me.
We made a few demos at home, inspired by the electronic pop of Depeche Mode and The Human League, after other cold-wave "heroes" such as Gary Numan and Ultravox. Armed with an equal dose of technological enthusiasm and poetic innocence – typical of our age and of the time – we took those demos to António Pinho at Polygram, who decided to back us with a three-year contract.
These were the boom years of so-called "Portuguese rock", and I had just come out of a very good experience as guest keyboard player with Street Kids, replacing (and recommended by) Nuno Canavarro. The first line-up to enter the studio was the two of us and Zé Manel (Manuel Andrade Rodrigues), a former schoolmate at the Salesianos do Estoril, and we were produced by Carlos Maria Trindade over a few recording sessions at Angel Studios, in Lisbon.
A later change in the line-up, with Luís Beethoven's departure, led us to record México/Western in just two days (12 hours), with almost no post-production. The result was a B-side, Western, born of an (almost) jam session, close to the minimal, experimental and psychedelic, in a transition from electronic pop to another format.
"Sonhos" was rediscovered well into the 21st century, when it was chosen for the soundtrack of the film "Variações": it is the song playing at the Trumps nightclub before António Variações's concert.
