Mémoire is a compilation album of Portuguese post-rock project How Comes The Constellations Shine consisting of outtakes. Those songs were recorded between 2006 and 2010 before Gonçalo Pereira start to work on the debut album Belongs To Mafra released in 2012 by Fluttery Records. During this four-year period, he recorded over two hundred songs.

The album was highly appreciated by the followers of our label and the critiques. Richard Allen from A Closer Listen wrote that "It’s uncommon for a band to break up, then return stronger than ever ~ but this rarity has just occurred. Portuguese band How Comes the Constellations Shine (once known as Purfect) is now down to its original member, guitarist Gonçalo Pereira."

After this album Pereira started working on the next How Comes The Constellations Shine LP, Mémoire. It wasn't easy to choose among two hundred tracks and some needed remixing.

Here he is explanining the motives and stories behind the tracks

"Overture was the final song recorded for the demo-album Precious Precious Silver Gold, released as free download in early 2010. This song was one of band mates favorite, but, the band never played this song. Overture is the only that was written with my fellow mate Tito. The guitar line in the beginning on the song was written by Tito during a rehearsal. At home, i wrote the rest of the song and recorded the whole song in one night. This is a special song. This could be a special song if we still together as a band. God only knows. "

"School Days is one of my favorite song ever. It was recorded at the same time as Alaska. I was in May 2008, just before buying new gear because in the beginning of this year all my gear was stolen. So, with new pedals and my beloved Boss GT-6, i started to write and record about ten new songs since the last one recorded, (Motherfuck). School Days was entirely composed with keyboards and and a lot of drum loops. I need to listen this song a lot of times until i get the right guitar pieces to put on."

"Alaska. I love this drum loop so much. When i heard this loop, i started immediately to work on a song with this drum loop. At this time we wanted to use a lot of pianos to support our songs. So, i recorded this piano loop and then all things change. The guitars were very simple, just three chords and a second guitar with a lot of delay make the main line of this song. We open the Mub Festival with this song. It was the only moment we play this song. But it’s still one my favorite."

"Leave The Heart That Now I Bear. This song was recorded right after Belongs To Mafra release.
I recorded a few songs just with guitars planning a future extended play to be released but i guess that this song matches with the old songs. Actually, this song is three songs in one. I recorded the first guitar line to be a completely different song. Then i recorded another guitar lines in the same project. For a while, a quit finishing this song, but when i re-open this project, i realized that this could be one song.

"Motherfucker is the first song written with the piano. After a week listening to this piano line, I started to add some guitars with a lot of delay, reverb and using a volume pedal. Then for the chorus i recorded up to five guitars including an acoustic one, and pushing up over the phrases the amount of distortion. This song was the last song recorded with my favorite guitar, a blonde Telecaster which was stolen after a rehearsal in january 2008. That guitar was my favorite one. I guess the name of this song came after that."

"She’s Blonde And She Says Uau A Lot has a lovely organ for the base. This song was written to be a kind of waltz or ballad or something like that. A song we could dance after dinner, slowly with our beloved one. Of course i was pushed to lift up the song to a massive distortion a the same drum loop compressed at the limit. This was the last song i recorded with my old Telecaster and the old recording gear."

"Shattered Glass we always wanted a song with pianos, synths, loops and ambient sounds. We always wanted a song with simple drums. We wanted a crescendo based song. I wrote this song at the same time as i was working on a self side project called Arundel. When i finish the songs for Arundel demo EP i realize that Shattered Glass should be a Constellations song."

"The Wind Will Carry Us. I guess that this song is the real image of Constellations as a band, as friends, as brothers. When we played this song live for the first time it was the best moment in our lives. When i was thinking about releasing this album the main idea was recording all this songs as new ones. This collection of songs were the best that i ever wrote and they are the true history of this band. But, honestly, after a few years, they sounded so fresh and so beautifully. They pictured five years of this project as a but, no matter if we never played most of them together. But all of this songs were the songs of our dreams, were the songs we heard a million times in our car. Why should I change this songs? This song is with no doubt, the most important song of How Comes The Constellations Shine as a band. And now that we no longer exists as a band, The Wind Will Carry Us is still our song."

"On Rascals is recorded when I moved for my new house with my eventual wife. It was in the summer of 2008 after our first gig with this formation. A song with a solo. I recorded this guitar solo in one take. To play this song live, i needed to learn again that solo for a week. But when all learned the song it was, wow, a huge huge wall of sound. One of the greatest moments we ever had."

"Western Media Avenue's the main guitar was written in 2009. We played this song in our third gig. I remember when we were playing this song, a girl was on the floor, with eyes closed, and she’s was dancing alone along the song. A magic moment. But after that concert we throw away this song because the notes were the same during the all song and started to be boring for us play that. But I still love this song, the drums getting bigger along the song. I always imagine a race when I listen to this song. This song is like a see you soon guys. It´s the closer song of this album, and I know, it will be the opening one for a future, brothers.Mémoire is the summary of all these years of work."

Fans of How Comes The Constellations Shine as a band and both as a project love this album as well.

Originally called Purfect, ” How Comes The Constellations Shine ” was formed in Lisbon, Portugal in 2005. Constellations was founded by guitarist Gonçalo Pereira. Working by himself, he completed most of the Constellations future songs. By late 2005 Pereira began the search for band members. The first to join was fellow drummer and long time friend André Abreu. Soon afterwards the two musicians linked up with bassist Nuno Mendonça and guitarist Tito Silva. In 2007 the band announced the departure of Mendonça in January. In 2008 Nuno Fragoso was recruited for Mub Festival concert and stays in the band. The group disbanded in early 2010.

Currently How Comes The Constellations Shine returned to the original form just with Gonçalo Pereira. Pereira also has releases on Fluttery Records under the moniker Diamond Gloss. Diamond Gloss' debut album Bears received great reviews all around the world.

Belongs To Mafra brings some changes to How Comes The Constellations Shine’s sound. While song structures on this album are the same as the ones that can be found on previous works, the sound has been toned down a little bit, and the piano takes further action on the whole album, allowing the guitars to work like strings ensemble.

REVIEWS

A Closer Listen / Richard Allen

It’s uncommon for a band to break up, then return stronger than ever ~ but this rarity has just occurred. Portuguese band How Comes the Constellations Shine (once known as Purfect) is now down to its original member, guitarist Gonçalo Pereira. Last year, Pereira introduced another solo project known as Diamond Gloss; Bears was one of the year’s best electronic entries, an album of mourning suffused with a quiet beauty and a childlike grace. Perhaps it was through this venture that Pereira decided to revisit How Comes the Constellations Shine, and to “tone it down”, as the press release indicates. This turns out to have been a very good idea, because this post-rock is tender and thoughtful, deeper in emotion than typically encountered in the field.

A leftover sadness – a muted melancholy – carries over from Bears, although few would pinpoint other comparisons. The music box timbres of that album are absent here; as expected, guitar is the primary instrument. Piano, drums, and light electronics are also present, and mesh well with their friends. It’s easy to play well with others when the others are alternate versions of one’s self. The multi-tracking creates such a convincing illusion that it’s unlikely Pereira will invite the other band members to return any time soon; in terms of the studio, they are simply not needed.

While many post-rock albums deal in crescendoes, Belongs to Mafra flourishes best in bursts - the moments in which the cymbals crash and complete the instrumentation. ”Untitled Three” contains a particularly nice set of these, each one a bit louder, snares establishing a military cadence while the bass booms in response. The percussion of the following track sounds like troops on the march; perhaps these are not good times in Portugal. Many of the other tracks – all untitled – eschew the drums in order to concentrate on mood. The best of these – “Untitled Eight” – makes use of flight communication in order to establish a dramatic base. But the album’s best piece is the tenderhearted “Untitled Nine”, the album’s closest link to Bears. This selection operates as a lullaby, with soft electronics and a soothing guitar melody, morphing gently each time it recurs.

Technically, a band with one member can never “break up”, so it’s safe to say that How Comes the Constellations Shine is here to stay, or at least is free to stick around as long as it (he) wants. Whatever guise Pereira chooses to take, we’re glad that he’s returned.

Mescaline Injection / Bastian

Portuguese Iceberg-Rock

An instrument is worth a thousand words. Sure, one can say that about a lot of post-rock bands and the Portuguese aren’t an exception. Or are they? They don’t handle their instruments like most of the others. In the 10 nameless songs they play the guitars like a string section – without a bow, but even fingers seem to manage this change of character. These shimmering strings and reverbs nearly bath in virulent melancholy while the piano secretly takes over the dominant part within the songs.

They are accompanied by lost voice-samples and small sound-shenanigans, which give the album a pleasant electronica touch. And how does this feel? Nearly as good as the calm moments of ARCTIC PLATEAUs debut album. Like the Italian the Portuguese know about writing gentle and sensitive post-rock-pieces with a definitive shoe-gaze influence which create a enchanting atmosphere. Beautiful album! (Translated by Matthias Brinkmann)

Absolute Zero Media / Clint Listing

So I'm label mates with these fine gentlemen and what we have is a collection of very personal minimalist Post Rock/ Ambient Rock track with haunting guitars, piano , strings and very minimalist percussion. They almost remind me of the more primitive Sigur Ros or Hrsta. I know there are those of you out there that call this style of music Dream pop but its far more then that. There is an epic side to How come the Constellations Shine. It becomes Orchestral and yes even at times sounds like the band Caspian to my ears. This band knows how to move the soul as well as mind. Though they do sound like over a dozen bands before them. Its a fantastic chronicle of the Post Rock sound and adventure all should take some time in the future.