On WYSIATI, Diogo Sarabando of himalion — the chamber-pop/indie-folk project from Aveiro, Portugal — reflects on the anxiety and necessity of leaving the past uninhabited.

Following a solo tour of the debut LP BLOOMING in November 2021, Diogo cast anchor at Lost in Pico, the home of his friend Henry Simões on Pico Island, in the mid-Atlantic archipelago of the Azores. In the house’s attic, he set up a small, cabin-like studio and, over the course of three weeks, began shaping new material. With his gaze magnetically bound to the colossal Pico Mountain, surrounded by cryptomeria forests, volcanic sand beneath his feet, and the deep Atlantic blue — elements later featured in the project’s visual world — Diogo planted the seeds of what would eventually become WYSIATI.

The title is drawn from the cognitive bias coined by Daniel Kahneman (What You See Is All There Is), which describes our tendency to make judgments based solely on readily available information, while neglecting what remains unseen or unknown.

Shortly thereafter, Diogo enrolled in a transformative School of Song course led by Robin Pecknold (Fleet Foxes). The programme’s emphasis on community-building and its educational “safe harbour” approach proved to be a catalyst for exploring the core idea of WYSIATI: the way the mind fails to account for chance, and how we falsely assume the future will resemble the past.

At the end of the course, Robin Pecknold generously awarded Diogo a professional recording and mixing budget, enabling him to fulfil one of himalion’s founding goals — to collaborate with a broader spectrum of musicians, particularly from the Aveiro region.

Mixed by Phil Weinrobe (Adrianne Lenker, Tomberlin, Florist, hand habits, among others) at Sugar Mountain, and mastered by Josh Bonati (Sufjan Stevens, Adrianne Lenker, Mac DeMarco, among others) in Brooklyn, New York, WYSIATI is himalion’s sophomore album, set for release in January.