Over the years, as a composer and pianist, I have collected several small audio/musical objects. Some are left-out takes from a final mix and others are small instrumental gestures. Transported from their original context, they acquired a new soul, a new expression.
This record emerges from the assemblage of those objects — developed both electronically and on the piano — into a structure, which can be heard throughout the eight Inner Monologues.
A word of appreciation to the musicians (friends) who allowed me to use their recordings for subsequent manipulation. This record would not be possible without them:
Miguel Moreira-Guitarra
João Mortágua-Saxofone
Miguel ngelo-Contrabaixo
Mário Costa-Bateria
Diogo Alexandre-Bateria (03 Disrupted Sleep)

Carlos Azevedo, December 2023



As so often happens with great composers-improvisors, after long careers playing and writing for different ensembles, there comes a time when one feels the need for introspection, for systematization, and for reflecting on the act of creating music.
Carlos Azevedo answered that call with Inner Monologues. “Surreptitiously” working alone for two years, he collected, improvised, recycled, composed and re-composed material that transports us to a sound universe we were not aware existed within him. We are in awe of its fantasy and plurality.
One could venture that the richness and imagination of Inner Monologues takes us by surprise. However, it’s hardly a surprise when we take into account the path of this consistently inspired musician.
For decades, we have been accustomed to Carlos Azevedo’s high standards of quality wherever he chooses to thread: from jazz combos to wind ensembles and Big Bands, from chamber music to music for symphonic orchestra, or to musical theater.
Singularly versatile and admirably chameleonic, Carlos Azevedo invites us to a newly constructed area of his essence. Carlos displays his typical boldness and sagacity when mastering sound spaces that oscillate between fantasy, chimera, or even humor, and evoking references as rich and varied as electronic music, techno, samples, collage, symphonic rock and jazz-rock from the 70s, cinema, contemporary music and 80s analog synthesizers. All these are combined in the private hall of mirrors of an inspired and admirable creator.
Such an edifice is by no means easy to build, as if the act of collecting is by itself not enough to construct. Inner Monologues could only emerge from the hands of someone as experienced and knowledgeable of the pieces he so judiciously selected based on his firmly structured knowledge. On his apparently solitary journey, sustained by occasional fragments taken from recording sessions with fellow musicians from other projects, we sense the playful pleasure of someone who talks to himself, but who also, undoubtedly, speaks to us in a way that makes us accomplices and willing travel mates.


Luís Tinoco, December 2023



Style is, perhaps, one of the most elusive notions in art. It evokes both a recognizable past and a projection of a future yet to be written. Style is not to be found in the predictable or the peculiar, it lies in the delicate balance between the plausible and the surprising. It is precisely in this place of familiar strangeness that I found these Inner Monologues. Though clearly a record by Carlos Azevedo, this is far from being yet another record by Carlos Azevedo.


Rui Penha, December 2023