Domingos Aleixo has been releasing music since his early teens, with Carregando a Vida Atrás das Costas under his alias Puto Tito in 2019 capturing a slew of that old SoundCloud material before he returned to the Lisbon bastion Príncipe a couple of years later with the romantic taster Não Sou Perfeito as he now began to forge a reputation as PT Musik.
Consumação is a response to broken relationships and a busted PC with the artist turning instead to a tablet and cellphone as his compositional devices. The title then nods more to an understanding of self and his commitment to music with Consumação conceived in the spirit of letting go as the artist marks a period of change through this transitional document.
The three tracks of Não Sou Perfeito were perceived through a kizomba frame but Consumação opens with a tarraxinha number in ‘Nha Budjura’ that combines limpid or new age spirituality with a more sultry syrupiness. ‘Lembranças’ carries us into the heart of the album through its batida bounce and percussive polyrhythms, a sprightly dance with springy accents and mallets or gongs chiming in the background of the composition.
From personal memories to propulsive handclaps, when the beat drops on ‘Coração de Pedra’ the piece reminds me of another Príncipe standout in the form of DJ Nigga Fox’s stunning ‘Má Rotina’. The lengthy seven-minute Circean adventure captivated as the second song but centrepiece of his album Chá Preto in early 2024 and here through similar mutations PT Musik manages to conjure something likewise grottoesque before ratcheting guiro sounds introduce more industrial textures. ‘Coração de Pedra’ means ‘heart of stone’ and if the song gestures towards the travails of modern romance it still abounds through hardships and a certain defiance in airs of wantonness and mystery.
‘Não Acredito’ is a piece of celestial pop, its shakers leaving salt and pepper or sedimentary grains all over the mix while its melodies suggest a mashup between Interstellar by Frankie Rose and nineties Velvet Rope-era Janet Jackson. There is something perhaps in these middle tracks of PT Musik’s early SoundCloud forays as the gauzy blend on ‘Não Acredito’ veers close to vaporwave while the opening moments of ‘Leave Me Alone’ muddle emotive indie rock and cloud rap in the manner of Juice WRLD and his lucid dreaming. Yet more handclaps soon give ‘Leave Me Alone’ a kind of wandering impetus, as though we were being led on a brisk stroll and taking in all the surrounds before the song blossoms and sparkles to evoke the vibe of summertime in the city.
Synthetic yelps and other robotic motions give way to a more sensual grind under neon strobes on the short ‘Movimento’. Then the penultimate ‘Me Suga’ abounds in a litany of bird sounds through its chirrups and cuckoos and a woodpecker’s incessant tap while the bass drum undergirds the piece with something more slow and sensual. It’s back to that tarraxinha dance, all hips and waist before a bow of strings change up the rhythm and appear to make the club scene more verdant. ‘Me Suga’ then offers slow flowering or fluttering gestures before its lengthy cooldown sequence.
The final track ‘Hot Girl’ is an older or riper cut that still flares with effulgent emotion. It featured on Verão Dark Hope the Príncipe summer compilation back in July of 2020 and returns here unscathed as PT Musik finds rhapsody amid the throb and ache, garbled vocals and something like pan pipes piercing the shrugging beat like shafts of light or with the inviting nature of a Lucio Fontana canvas.
