Can we call JP Simões a chameleon? Not in the David Bowie sense of the word, but in the way he finds a new skin at each new moment in his artistic musical life. There are obvious connections between what he does now and when we first met him with Belle Chase Hotel in the late 1990s. A light humor that exists in his writing, and that does not corrode, mixed with an ease with words. His voice and the lightness of the music around him also seem unchanged, whatever skin JP Simões may be wearing.

Bloom is the driving force behind this chameleon-like power. In the last decade, he has released three albums, all of them different, ranging from folk, blues, indie rock, and even a little glam. “Do Not Disturb,” the most recent, released in December 2025, features Pedro Pinto (double bass) and there is a natural tendency to think more about jazz. It is there, yes, but it is also a beautiful orientation among all the other songs that existed before and a desire, in the present, to fit them together. JP Simões’ voice finds its place, of course. He is chameleonic, his voice is not: relaxed, elegant, warm when he wants to be, or rather, when he needs to be.

Despite this, the voice is the constant when the skin changes, the safe haven that, even though almost everything seems to change, it is still JP Simões. You can feel this throughout the album, the aesthetic differences between “If I Was Someone Lovely” and “Underwater Conversation” are immense, JP Simões’ voice is the pillar that sustains the logic of Bloom. A chameleon-like project by a chameleon, ultimately, JP Simões being JP Simões. Unpredictable in almost everything. Except in writing beautiful songs. They are always there.
AS