The traveler who visits Lisbon and San Francisco can't help but notice their resemblance. Both are port cities situated by vast oceans, and their steep, winding hillside paths inspire similar knee pains in those navigating them. Each boasts vintage tramways, shifting microclimates and poppy-coloured suspension bridges—Lisbon's 25 de Abril is the spitting image of Golden Gate. When I arrived at the flat of Inês Coutinho, AKA Violet, in Lisbon's Junqueira neighborhood, I bumped into another prominent San Francisco feature—Josh Cheon, head of the Dark Entries label and former member of Honey Soundsystem. In town to play at Lux Frágil, he was visiting Coutinho and her partner, Marco Rodrigues, who both had releases upcoming on his label.

In recent years, Lisbon has also experienced a San Francisco-like transformation into a startup hub. A deluge of foreign investment, a hike in tourist-focused real estate development and the arrival of the Web Summit conference have had a noticeable effect on the city. But with rising property prices and an average wage that's not following suit, it's not clear that the spoils are being made available to the average citizen. Nonetheless, it was these exact conditions that made Coutinho want to move back to the city after a three-year stint in London.

Since she moved back in 2016, her musical career has swelled, thanks in large part to the success of her record label, Naive. Launched in 2017 with her own Togetherness EP, it's put out records by an impressive cast of mostly women artists: Lisbon's BLEID, a newcomer called Almaty, Octo Octa and Eris Drew. Alongside Rodrigues (AKA Photonz), she's also contributed to Lisbon's newfound vibrancy with the internet radio station Rádio Quântica and a collectively run queer party called mina.

Coutinho and Rodrigues moved to the UK in 2013 because they were frustrated with life in Portugal. The economy had crumbled under prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho, who cut state spending and increased austerity measures in an attempt to lift the country out of a crisis.

"Lisbon was not what it is today," Coutinho told me as we sat by the inflatable pool on her back patio. "No one was talking about Lisbon. There was no money. It was like a mentality of scarcity all the time. I was working extra time without being paid for it. I was doing a full-time job that I really couldn't stand anymore." She worked for five years writing technical copy about boilers and heating systems for an advertising agency. She disliked the work and pay, but like many in Lisbon at the time, felt stuck in the role because it wasn't likely that another would come along. "Fucking boilers. I know so much about boilers because of it."

In her estimation, this bleak economic situation was compounded by the fact that Portugal is still only a few decades out of a dictatorship, the Estado Novo, which was overthrown by the military-led Carnation Revolution in 1974. There also exists a scarcity of imagination in Lisbon, due to the fact that the severe censorship under the dictatorship still persists in the cultural memory. This pressure led to a prevailing sense of limitation. "Free will, expressing your thoughts, doing your own projects—these were forbidden under the dictatorship, so that lingers on here," said Coutinho. "It's very normal to think about something amazing and not go for it because it could go wrong. Whereas everything could go wrong all the time."

London offered the opposite: a diverse city overflowing with music, public services that actually worked, greater political awareness and a sense that "socialism" wasn't a bad word. She found another copywriting job, this time working for a Groupon-style deals website, but found the working culture more lighthearted and favorable because she knew she wasn't stuck there. The general culture of the city was also much more conducive to working on music.

Coutinho didn't jump right into the club world. Instead, she cut her teeth playing in pubs, hotels and shops, often using worn or out-of-date equipment. She couldn't play a techno set in a hotel lounge, so she learned to mix a wide range of styles, from boogie and hip-hop to jazz and house. This period also helped reinforce something that she already felt deeply: that you should never be a diva. Doing her own sound and dealing with outlandish customer requests taught her that DJs should be humble.

"These were DJ gigs that a lot of people would probably say, 'Oh, that's a shit DJ gig,'" she said. "But for me, it was really my school. In some of the pubs I would have to set up the PA myself. So I learned all these different things. I fine-tuned my mixing to a point where I was mixing all these different styles, and being able to do that was such a school to me. I value it so much."

Coutinho is humble almost to a fault. As we spoke about her accomplishments with Naive, Rádio Quântica and mina, she constantly claimed things were "not my idea." It wasn't her idea to release Eris Drew's first tracks on her label—that happened because Coutinho had been in touch with Octo Octa, who had contributed a remix to the Almaty release. They began discussing her releasing a solo EP with Naive, and soon Drew's name came up. Drew and Coutinho already had a spiritual connection because Drew had been an early supporter of the first Naive record. She hammered "Togetherness" in clubs all over the world, and even included it in last year's RA podcast.

Also "not her idea" was the label's third release, Gennaro, by the Swedish producer Almaty. Coutinho had been giving her Ableton lessons, and after a while she received her student's first track, a breakbeat bomb with hefty sub bass. She loved it and knew it had to come out on Naive. The next two releases will be from Ilana Bryne, a woman from Wisconsin who Coutinho came to know through Twitter, and Canada's Overland, who sent in some killer acid demos. "Again, not my idea!" she said.

What this catchphrase fails to acknowledge is that Coutinho's openness and supportive nature are infectious, even on social media platforms that generally alienate more than they connect. Her Twitter followers don't just get flyers and club videos; she also retweets other ascendent DJs she wants to support, helps DJs find gigs in other cities and stands up for herself and others when debates flare up around human rights issues. There's also a fair amount of her defending periods and farting as acceptable topics of conversation. Great opportunities show up right under her nose because she's fostered real relationships on platforms that are often only used as promotional tools.

This openness also directly informed the naming of Naive, as well as the music it's released. When I asked Coutinho about the name, she expressed a few different approaches to naiveté, all of which lead to a central tenet of wanting to live her life in an open way. For Coutinho, to be naive is to be constantly questioning (and unlearning when necessary) what the world expects of you. It's to ensure that your habits, goals and surroundings are specific to no one but yourself.

Then there's another kind of naiveté—the practice of deciding as an adult to see the world with a child-like innocence. She mentioned the phrase "I want to die an optimist," which sits in the description section of Naive's SoundCloud page. "I do want to die an optimist," she explained. "You know, you're deciding to still be an optimist even though you're fully aware that life has its darknesses. So it's about keeping that spirit, the feeling of being naive or being a bit innocent in the way you do things. You're assuming innocence about everything around you. You're just going to be more playful, and maybe you'll achieve better results with your art. Maybe. I'm not sure, but I want to believe in it. I'm trying. It's like an experiment. But it's a feeling in general for a way to lead your life—in a naive way, trying to believe that everyone can be kind. And if not, obviously you're not going to be stupid, because the label's not called Stupid, but it's about being a child in whatever way you can."

Coutinho also sees the music she releases as a realization of this sought-after naiveté, which comes from a place of emotional intensity rather than ignorance. "It's not pink, colorful or sweet music," she said. "Aggression can be super naive. You're not filtering anything." The forthcoming Overland record, she explained, was a perfect example. "It's a big acid track that has no frills. It's not very adulterated dance music. This music can also respect this philosophy of an unfiltered emotion and thought process. Unpolished, 'naive' as in unpolished."

Coutinho and Rodrigues were both working on music when they lived in London, and they'd play out together from time to time. They did some parties for Rodrigues' now-defunct label, One Eyed Jacks, but the nights never seemed to click. They also played pub nights, coming up with funny themes, like an entire night of vocal house, which would allow them to both indulge and challenge themselves. They'd been in London for three years and had gotten to know the scene well, but they'd also come to acknowledge the financial limitations of living in such a huge city. Plus, they'd been watching Lisbon's boom from afar. It felt like time to move back.

Coutinho and Rodrigues grew to love many facets of London's musical landscape, and their response was so often, "Why doesn't Lisbon have this?" Why doesn't Lisbon have an NTS? Why doesn't Lisbon have a Dalston Superstore? As the move came into focus, they allowed themselves to dream about what they might be able to accomplish in the reinvigorated city.

They started Rádio Quântica in London in 2013, and it soon became Lisbon-centric just by dint of who they knew. The station was the catalyst for their relocation to Lisbon, in September of 2016. They were offered the use of a free studio in a government-funded arts space called Teatro Praga, and they jumped at the opportunity to have their own spot where contributors could cross paths and spend time together instead of handing in pre-recorded shows. They donated their own turntables, CDJs and mixer to the cause. Soon, Rádio Quântica boasted a list of contributors that included journalists, musicians, activists and DJs specializing in sundry styles. Lisbon suddenly had its own version of NTS.

As Coutinho and Rodrigues settled back into Lisbon life, tending to the station and working on their own music projects, they thought about how they might throw the kind of queer party that could align with their musical and social ideals. Coutinho didn't feel she had the right knowledge to put on a queer night, but through Quântica she'd gotten to know a younger generation of queer people who were interested in dance music. Among them was Pedro Marum, who ran a collective and event series called Rabbit Hole. In early 2017, Lisbon's Biennial Of Contemporary Arts reached out to Marum to do a queer party for their opening week. He got Coutinho and Rodrigues involved, along with another Quântica DJ named João Viegas. The first mina party took place in April at a sleazy strip club-turned-bar with slick stone floors, art deco fixtures and space enough for a dark room and a chillout area.

The music programming for mina is still helmed by the original four members, but with 14 parties under their belts, there are now 15 people involved in the collective. They're no longer able to use the old strip club, but when I was visiting they had just thrown their first party in a new warehouse space, which has turned the night into a proper rave, large enough for two music areas. Their bookings remain Portugal-centric, including some DJs whose introduction to the craft was through Rádio Quântica and whose involvement with mina began by working the door. The nights brim with enthusiastic punky queers, who suddenly have a free-thinking rave to look forward to.

Coutinho missed the first mina in the new warehouse space because she was playing in Milan, but when we spoke two days later she was elated that it had been a success. She seemed excited about the future in general. Excited that she had such great records coming up on Naive and its new sub-label, naivety. Excited that the releases continue to be born of unlikely relationships. Excited that she's living in Lisbon, a city where she feels comfortable taking risks, and excited that these risks are resulting in some key wins.

Coutinho is riding a wave of success at the moment, but I got the sense that she wouldn't mind if a failure came along now and again, as long as she's still able to do things her way. We talked about her debut album, which she's currently working on. She told me that she's been trying not to think about her flaws (both musical and personal) as faults, and that honesty has been her greatest tool as she's been writing the record. "I think that's the only way to do something that's really good. It's a basic realization but something that I've only integrated kind of recently: doing exactly what you like without hiding any of your supposed flaws or things that are considered uncool. That's a mistake. You should really go all in. And if you burp, you burp. If you fart, you fart." I was struck by this phrase and asked if it was some sort of Portuguese saying. "No," she laughed, "that's just me."