Thievery Corporation To Release New Album On April 1

Thievery Corporation’s Rob Garza and Eric Hilton first connected over a love of bossanova and the group will honor the genre that brought them together with the release of Saudade on April 1. The band’s seventh studio album is their first record devoted entirely to the Brazilian-born genre.

The album’s title is derived from a Portuguese word meaning “a longing for something or someone that is lost, a contented melancholy, or, simply, the presence of absence.” Saudade is said to draw influence from “classic Brazilian performers like Antonio Carlos Jobim, Gal Costa, and Luis Bonfá-along with Serge Gainsbourg, Ennio Morricone, and more modern artists like electro-samba pioneer Isabelle Antena.”

“We always try to progress into something different and stretch our musical chops, and taking a whole album to dive into this one sound seemed like a really great way to do that,” says Eric Hilton in a statement announcing the release. Adds Rob Garza: “It’s a bit of a departure for us, but at the same time these are our roots, this is what brought us together. It’s us coming full circle from electronic music back to something organic before we move on to our next chapter.”

The album features tracks sung by one of five female vocalists and includes guest appearances by U.N.K.L.E. drummer Michael Lowery, Argentine singer/songwriter Federico Aubele and master Brazilian percussionist Roberto Santos.

Check out “Depth Of My Soul” off of Saudade, which was debuted on Speakeasy: