Thiago Barlanza has picked an audacious name for a project built on such quiet, unshowy tenderness. We As Gods, shuttling between Rio de Janeiro and Lisbon in its making, trades in analog warmth and hazy, softly smudged textures — the sonic equivalent of a photograph left slightly out of focus on purpose. "A Human Like You," the title track and opening statement of his debut album, is the clearest possible introduction to that world, and it earns the honour.

Debut singles arrive most weeks bearing the fingerprints of some marketing meeting, all algorithm-friendly hooks and focus-grouped edges. "Insomniac" carries no such fingerprints. It sounds like it was made by a man alone at 3am with nothing but a laptop, a bruised heart and a refusal to sleep until the thing was finished — which, as it turns out, is precisely how the most durable pop music tends to get made.