A man of discreet yet consistently substantial presence in this town’s musical scene, Tó Trips has amassed nearly four decades of guitar craftsmanship—a rare case of benign resilience and constant inventiveness. Musician, guitarist, and composer, Tó Trips achieved his greatest international recognition as part of the duo Dead Combo, formed alongside Pedro Gonçalves. Touring across the globe, he significantly influenced the Portuguese music scene with his eclectic style, blending rock, blues, and elements of traditional Portuguese music.

Tó Trips is the author of an extensive and award-winning musical body of work, frequently “rescued” by film and television to define unimaginable soundscapes. After his solo debut album Guitarra 66 (2009) and the follow-up project Guitarra Makaka: Danças a um Deus Desconhecido (2015), he released Popular Jaguar (2023) – an album of mysteries, silences, and places, with geographic references ranging from LA to Naples, passing through Nazaré (PT). It contains allusions to transcendence and concrete everyday situations, in a vivid mosaic full of lyricism, woven with mournful chords and notes that cut through anything that might sound superficial.

At the start of this year, he began a new chapter, joining forces with Alexandre Frazão on drums, António Quintino on double bass, and Helena Espvall on cello, forming the group Fake Latinos. The group’s album, Dissidente, released in March, represents for Tó Trips “A handful of songs, places, life stories—sometimes darker, sometimes brighter—always with one foot in Lisbon and the other elsewhere. Where the way of playing guitar from the past meets that of today!”.