In parallel to the fact that flamenco is the most robust pillar (although not the only one) of traditional Spanish music, fado acquires an equivalent role in the folk music of Portugal, the country located to the west of the Iberian Peninsula.
What that means is that there is a constant influx of new and veteran artists expanding the creative possibilities of the musical genre. Last time we spoke about fado, it was through the work of Sara Correia.[75] This time FolkWorld gets a new album from the fadista Carla Pires.
CartograFado, is her fourth studio album. The modernity of Portuguese music with multiple roots, that are cosmopolitan but also rural, national, but also well-traveled, is present here. In these places where we unexpectedly stop and chat, and the listener is challenged to pass into another time and get in touch with the wanderings of fado trough the paths of the world, happily surrendering to the tropical flavours of chorinhos and mornas, entangling itself with rural voices and flamenco bulerias in a feast of appeal and desire.
The bewilderment of a loving loss, reckoning with life and destiny, encounters in the landscapes of silence and solitude, departure, adventure, luck, longing (saudade) but also returning and feasting are present here. Silences and voices mirroring a harvest of emotions from the four corners of the world, in the apprenticeship of the soul, while going through so many uncertain and mysterious places, charting for us a cartography of a fado in motion, made of points that reach the depths of laughter and crying.
By connecting these points, the emotional richness of Carla Pires’ voice draws the lines of CartograFado.
In addition to Carla's voice, the fourteen songs that determine this mapping of memories, feelings and reflections are outlined by musicians such as: Amélia Muge (artistic direction & textes), Bernardo Couto (Portuguese guitar), André M. Santos (classical guitar), Joâo M. Santos (doublebass), António Barbosa, Otto Pereira & Kyriakos Gouventas (violins), Joao Barata (viola), Raquel Merrelho (cello), Elsa Matos Gomes (mezzo soprano), Marta Ribeiro (alto voice), Joao Pedro Afonso (tenor), Rui Borras (bass), Marta Chasqueira (handclaps).
Photo Credits:
(1)-(2) Carla Pires
(unknown/website).
