aking advantage of the sudden appearance of the sun, Lennox decides to drive out to the Atlantic Ocean.

Walking to his parking garage, we come across a skinny woman in her 30s, a little worse for the wear, guiding cars into empty parking spots. I have seen her, and several others like her, on most of my trips up this block; in a depressed economy like Portugal’s, this is what passes for work for many people. Greeting her in Portuguese, Lennox digs in his pocket and hands her some coins.

Inside his Volkswagen, he plugs his phone into the car stereo, and we go bouncing over the city’s hills accompanied by the mournful foghorn bleats of dark UK producer Andy Stott. The garish Amoreiras Towers loom absurdly over the city, as though a chunk of skyline had fallen out of The Fifth Element and landed on top of Lisbon. “So gnarly,” says Lennox, laughing. “It’s like a really ugly dog—you kind of love it despite its ugliness.”

We cross an enormous bridge that looks like the Golden Gate, and then it’s all short pines and eucalyptus; the single-family houses have peaked roofs and chimneys. It’s hard to believe the city is just minutes behind us.

Lennox and his family used to live on this side of the river, in a house in a gated community that was way too expensive, although it did have a fireplace. They had come seeking peace and quiet, and they found too much of it, eventually heading back to the hustle of Bairro Alto and Príncipe Real.

Cresting a bluff, the trees change again—suddenly they’re shorter and scrubbier, bent over into the wind. And then there’s the ocean, sooner than you’d expected to see it. Suddenly all those seagull sounds on Tomboy’s “Alsatian Darn” make more sense, as do all the gradations of light in Panda Bear’s music, and the way his vocals seem to float on the wind.

Down at the bottom of the bluffs, a sign says “Praia do Americano”—Beach of the American—and we park and stroll down the sandy road, dodging massive puddles. Most of the snack bars are closed for the off-season; many of the houses are boarded up or falling down.

“This is the ultimate big empty space,” he says, laughing. A few surfers splash out in the waves; a pack of wild dogs runs between the dunes. The sand is littered with razor clam shells, and every few paces there’s a jellyfish corpse, bigger than an outstretched hand, rubbery and translucent blue.

“The surfers here aren’t very good,” he says, watching them flail in the choppy water. “It always makes me feel better to see crappy surfers, like, ‘I could do that.’”

He takes off his shoes and socks, rolls up his khakis, and wades into the ocean. It is, in some ways, a performance; he’s being photographed for this piece. Were there no camera, he probably wouldn’t be doing this. But he’s game.

The ocean is a steady dull roar. It fills your head; it erases everything. It’s comforting. And in that void, I have Grim Reaper’s “Come to Your Senses” running on a loop, with its cryptic hints of artistic failure (“Nope you won’t / Ever make that one again”) and its triumphant refrain, “It’s inside the one and all.“

I tell him this when he walks back up the sand. “I wrote that just over those cliffs,” he says, “maybe a quarter mile away.”

We eat at a nondescript place—Lennox and his wife’s secret spot—and it’s one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten. Clams and shrimp and grilled sargo, or seabream, blackened around the edges, its flesh plump and flaky. Towards the end of lunch, Lennox thanks us for “coming all this way” to see him (though, honestly, that meal alone would have made it all worthwhile). “Thanks for putting up with me,” he sort of mumbles.

Out of the blue, in response to a question no one asked, he says, “I haven’t been everywhere, but Portugal’s my favorite place I’ve ever been.”

Before we drive back, we walk out onto the sand one more time. Way down the beach, fishermen are casting into the surf with enormous long poles, enveloped in a silvery glow; we discuss walking further, but Lennox points out that no matter how close we get, it will probably just look like where we are now. The mist is a trick of the air and the light. In reality, it’s all around us already.