Tim Maia - Racional Vols. 1&2
This was after a trip to Brazil when I went down there with my mum and my sister and we did some shows. It was an intense moment in my life because Kate had been diagnosed with cancer and her health was pretty precarious. We saw there was a fairly decent run for the next couple of months – the treatment was kind of working and she was feeling relatively okay – so I booked some gigs in Brazil. We proceeded to have one of the most beautiful, decadent, life-affirming trips I ever took in my life, and it was during that little working vacation that I discovered Tim Maia's music, and I've been a fan ever since. He sadly passed away in the 1990s. I love that he represents a real amalgam of so many cultures, as a lot of great Brazilian artists do: African, Spanish, Portuguese, he's just this melting pot of great culture and music and also tremendously individual at the same time. He is certainly well known in large sections of the world, but is a bit of a kept secret in the West.