The return of the Gustavo project, marked by the upcoming album and book featuring lyrics from the Gustavo repertoire, will be celebrated on November 25, with a grand concert at Arena Riga. Tickets here.
The concert program will be based on the repertoire of the legendary debut album "Beidzot" ( eng. “Finally”) which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. The re-release of the album on CD and vinyl will also take place on the same day as the concert. A book of Gustavo's lyrics written between 2001 and 2011 is also in the works, and it will also include stories about the making of the songs as well as previously unseen images from Gustavo's personal archives.
Despite the fact that the concert will feature popular compositions, with many people knowing every line and bar by heart, it will be a show full of pleasant surprises. The concert will be held in an amphitheatre format at Arena Riga, with limited seating.
Gustavo returned earlier this summer with the striking music video “Mums vajag atpakaļ Gustavo” (eng. “We Need Gustavo Back”), the first single from his upcoming fifth studio album, which is full of references to Gustavo's early days.
Gustavo's last composition was nearly ten years ago. Throughout this time, Gustavo's fans have listened to the musical material that has been released and have asked if and when the project will resume its creative activity.
"Since the project's pause, I've been collecting content and musical ideas that didn't fit into the direction of the Arstarulsmirus project's wish songs. They are much more in line with Gustavo's style - musically, they are a more intense, aggressive, and playful form. They are personal, direct, and profound in content, but also simple, present-tense and retrospective lyrics with dense and skillful rhyming, accompanied by witty wordplay, jokes, and varied rhythmic patterns, “ says the artist himself about Gustavo’s return.
Gustavo also recently released a new song, "Starp rindām" (eng. “Between The Lines”), the second single from his upcoming album.
"In the song, I wanted to include two episodes that are meaningful to me. On the one hand, it is a retrospective story about aspects of my childhood experience that are still fresh in my mind, which led me to hip-hop, and the fact that my hometown environment is often associated only with scenes of self-transcendence. On the other hand, they are self-ironic comments on the relaunch of the Gustavo project and its goals,“ says the musician of the new piece.
The new single "Starp rindām" (eng. “Between The Lines”), along with the previously released “Mums vajag atpakaļ Gustavo” (eng. “We Need Gustavo Back”), sets the tone for Gustavo's upcoming fifth studio album. The upcoming compilation will include fifteen new songs. They will be musically intense and personal in content, deep and inventive hip-hop stories in song form, with plenty of commentary and references to previously released material within the project and the Latvian hip-hop genre. The album's title has not yet been revealed.
Gustavo is very pleased with the collaboration with music video director Elvijs Pārpucis, cinematographer Ņikita Korņevs, and the Later video studio team, as their vision of the screen version was very successful in enhancing the message of the new song.
“The process of filming the clip was an incredible adventure, taking me to places I spent a lot of time as a child but haven't been able to visit in the last decade. It was very interesting to be present in the process, when so many different atmospheres and subtexts were conjured up literally from scratch," the songwriter says of the video clip's creation.
While you wait for the new record, listen to Gustavo's debut album, and see you at the concert!
