Two Decades of Lovers & Lollypops
By
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September 23, 2025
When Joaquim Durães, known to his peers as Fua, started Lovers & Lollypops in 2005, he couldn’t have imagined how many different lives his little idea would go on to have. If someone had told him then that 20 years later, Lovers & Lollypops would not only still exist but would be a Portuguese independent music institution, chances are Fua would have laughed it off. Yet, two decades on, the label persists. Many things have changed, but the DIY punk spirit fueling Lovers & Lollypops remains the same.
L&L’s history starts in Barcelos, Fua’s hometown, located about an hour away from Porto. Then a student at a university in Porto, the young Joaquim took the opportunity to study Erasmus in Barcelona. During his stint there, he fell in love with the DIY spirit of the local rock scene and wanted to recreate what inspired him in Barcelos (and Porto). Luckily for him, the Barcelos alternative rock scene was starting to thrive. Bands like Green Machine became some of the first groups connected to the label, embodying an idea that has stayed part of L&L’s ethos: friends helping friends.
And with the help of plenty of friends over the years, Lovers & Lollypops has released some of the most daring and genre-defying music in Portugal, and organized some of the most interesting and fun music festivals in Portugal. The much missed Milhões de Festa (held from 2007 to 2018), or the much cherished Tremor, held yearly on the island of São Miguel, Azores, since 2014. These were (and are) events that embody the DIY utopia at the heart of the label’s vast catalogue of over 150 releases.
Lovers & Lollypops’ longevity is proof that DIY ethics can flourish when the punk ethos is not left for dead. This list serves as an entry point to the Lovers & Lollypops’ catalogue, showcasing the many sounds the label has released during its two decades of existence.
Black Bombaim
Black Bombaim
Four years after the first CD-Rs were printed with L&L’s logo, Black Bombaim, one of Barcelos’s great bands (and one of the many descendants of Green Machine) truly put Lovers & Lollypops on the radar of national and international music aficionados. The self-titled LP bridges the gap between the heavy blues of Green Machine and the explosion of stoner rock bands hailing from Barcelos (KILLIMANJARO; Solar Corona; Gator, The Alligator).
In Black Bombaim, Tojó (bass), Ricardo Miranda (guitar), and Senra (drums) found a way to transform their boring life in Barcelos into thunderous riffs filled with pure Black Sabbath and Kyuss devotion, monolithic tunes meant to be played through the biggest possible PA in the middle of nowhere. It turned Black Bombaim into household names in the alternative rock scene in Portugal, and eventually into a cult band for melomaniacs to find and fall for. The perfect record to start your Lovers & Lollypops journey.
Throes + The Shine
Rockuduro
When Fua went to Barcelona to study Erasmus, he was a student at a university in Porto. Therefore, it made perfect sense to connect his label to whatever was happening at home. L&L’s relationship to Porto still exists to this day, and it was in the town known as “Cidade Invicta” (Invincible City) where Lovers & Lollypops mutated to become more than a rock label.
One of the first releases showcasing this change was Rockuduro, the debut from the trio Throes + The Shine. As the title suggests, Rockuduro fuses rock and kuduro, an Angolan dance music genre. It’s an explosive record, filled with party-ready dance music played with hard-hitting riffs and tight grooves. Imagine if the batida sound of Buraka Som Sistema was passed through a post-hardcore filter: That’s how Rockuduro sounds.
Glockenwise
HEAT
In 2015, Lovers & Lollypops turned ten and released HEAT, the third LP from Glockenwise. Hailing from Barcelos, Nuno Rodrigues (guitar and vocals), Rafael Ferreira (guitar), Rui Fiusa (bass), and, at the time, Cristiano Veloso (drums), the band embraced on HEAT a bleaker and more melodic sound without losing any of their punk rock edge. It proved to be the record that not only ended an era for Glockenwise (they would never sing in English again), but it also closed out the first decade of Lovers & Lollypops by becoming one of the most acclaimed and successful records in the label’s history.
Paisiel
Paisiel
Choosing an experimental music record from the Lovers & Lollypops catalogue is a challenge. There is a lot of sonic variety, and most if not all of the experimental music records released by the label are pretty good. However, something about Paisiel’s self-titled debut LP stands out. It’s a great record to start exploring the “weird” part of L&L’s catalogue, as it reveals the tight bond between the label and the Porto experimental music scene. The brainchild of Portuguese drummer, percussionist, and sonic sculptor João Pais Filipe and German saxophonist Julius Gabriel, Paisiel’s first album is supposed to make you levitate, the songs structured as freely and carefully as possible to do so. Just like L&L’s curatorship.
Cave Story
Punk Academics
British comedian James Acaster once described Cave Story as “extremely good art indie” from Portugal. He was right. Cave Story is a gem from Caldas das Rainha, a town on the west coast of Portugal, that found a home on Lovers & Lollypops with their uncanny take on punk music.
In the 2010s, Gonçalo Formiga (voice, guitar), José Sousa (keyboards), Pedro Zina (bass), and Ricardo Mendes (drums) were responsible for some of the most exciting guitar music Portugal had ever heard, and 2019’s Punk Academics is their masterpiece. It’s a record fully indebted to the entire history of DIY, from ’70s New York art rock to 1990s slacker rock, post-hardcore, and emo. If this record had been released in the United States, Cave Story would’ve become a household name on alt-rock radio. They are that good. No doubt, this record is one of Lovers & Lollypops’ crown jewels.
Conferência Inferno
Ata Saturna
The Covid-19 pandemic functioned as a reset button for Lovers & Lollypops. It became necessary for Fua and his peers to rethink and adapt, all without losing hope while persevering under adverse circumstances.
Ata Saturna, the debut LP by Conferância Inferno, is a record encapsulating the changes that occurred not just at L&L during that period, but also in Porto. The impact of gentrification, the closure of live music spaces, and a wave of nihilism that impacted the bohemian punk spirit that inspired L&L from the get-go are all themes heard in vocalist Francisco Lima’s poetic lyrics, aided by the sheer dark danceability of the post-punk synths played by Raúl Mendiratta and José Miguel Silva. A beautiful ode to a bygone era.
Sopa de Pedra
Do Claro Ao Breu
Not many records on the Lovers & Lollypops catalogue sound as beautiful as Do Claro Ao Breu, the great Sopa de Pedra record from 2022. The contributors to this record are many: Inês Campos, Sara Yasmine, Benedita Vasquez, Inês Loubet, Inês Rosa Melo, Maria Vasquez, Mariana Gil, Rita Costa, Rita Sá, and Teresa Campos. The gorgeousness of the tales told in song touch on the esoteric and darker mood of Portuguese folklore, calling back to the past to imagine a better, more communal future.
Ece Canli
S A C R O S U N
Turkish-born, Porto-based singer and researcher Ece Canli has released some of the most spatial music in Lovers & Lollypops’ catalogue. On her debut, 2020’s Vox Flora, Vox Fauna, she explores the multiple dimensions of sound and body, kickstarting an artistic path she developed further in 2024’s brilliant S A C R O S U N.
If Vox Flora, Vox Fauna was all about the contact between human experience and nature, S A C R O S U N is about how these phenomena connect to the finite cosmos that haunts our past and future. But the dark sounds heard in S A C R O S U N—influenced by drone, ambient music, folk, and doom metal—are not ones of despair. They are the sounds of finding hope amidst the dark world we live in, and of connecting with something that feels bigger than ourselves. It’s that hope that continues to power Lovers & Lollypops’ resilience.