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Sessa—the moniker of São Paulo-based artist Sergio Sayeg—releases “Nome de Deus” (“Name of God”), the second single/video from his new album, Pequena Vertigem de Amor, out November 7th via Mexican Summer. Following “Vale a Pena“, “Sessa’s celebration of being alive and in love,” (Remezcla) “Nome de Deus” finds him collaborating with the pianist, Marcelo Maita, the younger brother of São Paulo samba jazz legend Amado Maita.
In making Pequena Vertigem de Amor, a cosmic connection by way of his son’s pre-school yielded a missing musical ingredient—an “element on piano, which I had never put in my music, that fulfilled my search for a classic samba jazz sound,” Sessa says. A fellow musician and parent suggested Maita, and he invited him to contribute a few songs, including today’s single. Maita’s rhythmic and urgent piano stabs on “Nome de Deus” steer the piece through its absence of Sessa’s guitar. Over the heightened musical tension of Maita’s staccato attacks and Biel Basile’s aggressive percussion, Sessa’s impassioned vocals assert agency in defiance of deities, primal urges in conflict with nature’s laws: “I never came to know god’s name // I don’t bow to man’s law and I know best” (“nunca soube o nome de deus // não me curvo a lei dos homens e quem sabe sou eu.”) The accompanying video is directed by Rollinos.
Pequena Vertigem de Amor—the third full-length in Sessa’s expanding catalogue—is not just an evolution sound; it is a transformation. Sessa describes the album as “a bit more nocturnal, open-ended, crooked funky,” highlighting inspiration from soulful influences indigenous to North and South America, from Shuggie Otis, Roy Ayers and Sly Stone to Erasmo Carlos, Tim Maia and Hyldon. The emotional core and midpoint of the album evokes the stoned bucolic bliss of Erasmo Carlos’ introspective 1972 album Sonhos e Memorias 1941-1972, first on “Bicho Lento” (“Slow Creature”), with its lackadaisical flute arrangement courtesy of frequent collaborator Alex Chumak (Soyuz), and then transitioning seamlessly into Sessa’s most earnestly joyful composition, lead single “Vale a Pena” (“It’s Worth It”).
Sessa says the songs on Pequena Vertigem de Amor “are a mix of personal chronicles and quiet meditations about life in the face of personal change, of experiencing something so big that you realize your insignificant size in space and time.” This new perspective and reality remade his personal life and his connection to music: “For the first time I saw music move from the center to the side of my life.” The radical reordering of priorities presented fresh opportunities in his music. “In an interesting way, music became more mixed with my life,” Sessa notes, as he found ways to conjure melodies, lyrics and inspiration from the daily rhythms of life.
The album also sees Sessa expanding his sonic palette, stretching in multiple dimensions simultaneously. There’s an emphasis on rhythm and enhanced tempos, as he experiments with new vocal cadences and textures, and adds a bunch of musical instruments not heard on his previous recordings, like piano, synthesizer, wah-wah guitar, and a primitive drum machine. Sessa tracked his existential transformation to magnetic tape at Cosmo, the studio he cofounded with Biel Basile, over five sessions between April 2024 and March 2025.
Across nine tracks, Sessa reflects on his personal evolution, an experience that he says brings into sharp contrast “the ambiguities and contradictions in life, which is a place that always has inspired my writing.” Pequena Vertigem de Amor reminds us that experiencing vertigo is simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating, sentiments that this collection of Sessa songs delivers lyrically and musically, fusing novel and familiar sounds, styles and instruments in celebration and wonderment of life’s “ordinary and extraordinary” rites of passage.
Pre-order/save Pequena Vertigem de Amor
Watch/Stream:
“Nome de Deus”
“ Vale a Pena”
Sessa Tour Dates:
Wed. Nov. 5 – Tokyo, JP @ WWW
Fri. Feb. 6 – Lisbon, PT @ Casa do Capitão
Sat. Feb. 7 – Espinho, PT @ Auditório de Espinho
Mon. Feb. 9 – Manchester, UK @ YES (Pink Room)
Tue. Feb. 10 – Bristol, UK @ Strange Brew
Wed. Feb. 11 – London, UK @ Rich Mix
Fri. Feb. 13 – Paris, FR @ le Hasard Ludique
Sat. Feb. 14 – Brussels, BE @ Botanique
Sun. Feb. 15 – Amsterdam, NL @ Bitterzoet
Tue. Feb. 17 – Frankfurt, DE @ Brotfabrik
Wed. Feb. 18 – Hamburg, DE @ Knust
Thu. Feb. 19 – Berlin, DE @ Mikropol
Fri. Feb. 20 – Cologne, DE @ Stadtgarten
Sat. Feb. 21 – Utrecht, NL @ Footprints Festival
