Editorial Note — Soraya Alcalá
Mateus Asato’s debut album reflects a rare balance between technical mastery and emotional clarity. ASATO stands as a personal and artistic statement from one of today’s most influential guitarists.
Brasil
Today, Brazilian guitarist Mateus Asato shares his debut album ASATO – listen. For over a decade, Asato has been one of the most influential voices in modern guitar, yet his debut album, ASATO, represents a beginning far more profound than a simple collection of songs. It is a sonic reclamation of his name, his heritage, and his confidence to be his own frontman.
The title is no coincidence. For Asato, his surname was once a source of childhood friction—a marker of «otherness» that often replaced his identity in the eyes of peers. Today, ASATO stands as a proud affirmation of his Japanese ancestry. The seeds for the project were sown during a transformative 2017 trip to Japan, an experience that shifted Mateus’s perspective from being a premier sideman (Bruno Mars, Jessie J, Tori Kelly, Silk Sonic) to a definitive solo artist.
Spanning ten years of creative evolution, the album captures the puzzle pieces of Mateus’s identity. The tracklist travels from the earliest compositions like 2014’s “Change” to the final studio captures of “HENDRIX” and “Goodbye,” written precisely on December 14th, 2024. The result is a vivid sonic travelogue inspired by the landscapes of Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Hokkaido and his ancestral home of Okinawa.
The music itself defies the pressure to conform. In a world that often told him instrumental music was «missing something» without lyrics, Mateus explores the depths of melodic conversation. From the high-energy bursts of “Kyoto’s Jam” to the peaceful, spiritual resonance of his acoustic work, ASATO utilizes the guitar as a vessel for complex emotions that words often fail to capture.
«Sometimes the point of a message is its own subjectivity,» Mateus says. «Like an abstract painting with no description.» After twenty years with the guitar as his closest companion, ASATO is not just a debut; it is the sound of a musician finally arriving exactly where he is meant to be.
