Ed Motta has been one of Brazil’s most successful singers for three and a half decades. Throughout his long career, Motta has absorbed a wide variety of styles, from bossa nova to hard rock, funk, soul, jazz, and fusion, as well as various forms of pop, repeatedly blending them into new combinations that coalesce into an unmistakable whole thanks to his voice, which is as gentle as it is powerful. With his latest opus, “Toc-Toc“, he is now embarking on a fresh start under the motto “Back to the Future.” Strictly speaking, it is a journey through time and space—or rather, through many eras and just as many places. On the one hand, there’s the echo of many great legends of Brazilian pop music from the 1960s to the present, but the songs also encompass elements of funk, synth-pop, and electronica. Motta distills all of this into a statement about the present, in which he simply swaps the traditional roles of the past and the future.

In his songs, Ed Motta aims for nothing less than to capture the sunlight. And thanks to his unique personality, he actually succeeds. “Toc-Toc” means “knock-knock” in Brazilian. Ed Motta knocks on the door of life and asks to be let in. If one were to sum up “Toc-Toc” in a single sentence, it would be a tender declaration of love for the beauty of the world.