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| Rollingstones |
 B.B. King says we need blues music now more than ever. So maybe it's time to pool global resources. Mariza is the reigning voice of fado, Portugal's weep–in–your–wine music. Her latest sets her majestic, unbowed alto over traditional floor–pacing rhythms, alongside the shivering timbres of Portuguese guitar and jazzy–blue piano. The music's saudade — fado's animating spirit, which roughly translates as "sad yearning" — transcends its Portuguese verses. And its indomitable soul gets English expression in a sweet reading of the Charlie Chaplin composition "Smile," a reminder of music's pan–national healing power....full text |
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| Lucidculture |
Terra, the fifth album by Portugal’s “Queen of Fado” coincides with a marathon 47-city US tour kicking off on Valentine’s Day in Chicago which should vault the chanteuse from cult status here [scroll down to the next paragraph if you're familiar with fado music]. Fado, meaning “fate” is the national music of Portugal, dark, troubled ballads sung by women with an ache in their voices. Fado is characterized most overtly by “suadade,” a uniquely indigenous term whose translation falls somewhere between angst, longing and sentimentality, all qualities which show up here in droves. On this album, Mariza is backed by a tasteful acoustic backing unit including six- and twelve-string guitar, upright bass, piano and drums. There’s a little bolero feel here as well as a somewhat noir cabaret sensibility and a few songs that stray toward more modern pop territory, with the omnipresent twelve-string adding an otherworldly, eerily ringing edge.
As can be expected, laments comprise much of this cd, most notably Já Me Deixou (Now It’s Left Me) and Alma De Vento (Soul of the Wind), with their dark swaying relentlessness. The most striking number on the album is Beijo De Saudade (Sentimental Kiss), its catchy 12-string melody set against restrained muted trumpet, the vocals getting all smoky on the second verse. It’s based on a poem by a famous Cape Verde poet, written as he lay dying in his hospital bed in Portugal, badly missing his native land. There’s also more upbeat material including the bouncy Rosa Branca (White Rose), whose narrator finds she’s danced so much that the flower she’s been wearing has fallen to pieces: “If you love roses so much why don’t you love me?” she inquires exasperatedly. As can be expected, the strongest songs here are the more traditional numbers: when they edge toward a more overtly commercial, contemporary American sound, both singer and band sound a little out of their element. The cd ends on a particularly haunting note with Morada Aberta (My Door Is Open), where Mariza asks the river to rise up and wash away every physical and metaphorical trace of the past....full text |
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| Guardian |
| The fifth studio album by Portugal's finest sees her, along with musos such as Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés, and guitarists Dominic Miller and Javier Limón, mix mournful fados with flamenco, Cuban jazz and general folkiness. A superb singer live, on record she can sound a bit constrained in comparison with other fado-ish rivals, but she remains a class act all the same....full text |
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| Rollingstones |
| Lucinda Williams once called her "a folk Nina Simone." But Ana Egge is more country than that. Raised by hippies who grew wheat in North Dakota, the Brooklyn singer–songwriter crafts homespun hymns on her sixth disc to sing with your bare feet on the dashboard. "Bully of New York" recounts a sad late–night conversation between Egge and a park ranger whose hours broke up his marriage (best part: She met him while hitchhiking). Egge's rootsy pedal–steel pop recalls singers like Shawn Colvin, but her sharply observed tales of the overlooked and underpaid feel utterly of the moment....full text |
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