M. Craft

Silver and Fire was released yesterday as a single. Like all other weeks I don't know many of the 7"s I buy; I have a listen at them later on in the week (via the internet because I haven't bought a record player yet). Moving on, I bought this single yesterday, had a listen to the song today and I was moved by how beautiful his sound is.

M. Craft stands for Martin Craft and he is an Australian living in London ("in sunny Dalston"). He has done music since he was 15 before moving to East London. There are references to Jazz, Bossa Nova, Serge Gainsbourg, but to me he is the third King of Convenience.

Check his website for a full biography, to listen to the single. Check 679 Recordings website to shop for his records.

M.Craft Website
679 Recordings

ping pong

You were right, Aragão.

The first track from X-Wife's forthcoming second album is available on their MySpace website. It's called 'ping pong' and this is a fantastic track that sounds like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs being re-fucked by LCD Soundsystem having a bad acid trip. João Vieira, Fernando Sousa and Rui Maia are the three members of the band (vocals/guitar, bass, synthesizers/drums/drum machine) refer to themselves as a "post punk electronic rock power trio" and are based in Porto.

They have been doing concerts everywhere (NYC, London) - in fact I missed their shows here in London last month because I didn't know they were doing them.
Their first album 'Feeding the machine' has been released in US where they had great reviews during their mini-NYC-tour.

'Taking control' taken from 'Feeding the machine' has been released on a UK compilation called Electronic Bible 2, by Shellshock. There is a limited edition 7" single from it with this track plus two others from other bands.

Both tracks are available on MySpace - xwiferocks.

X-Wife official website
xwiferocks MySpace.com

Balancê in the UK

Sara Tavares album 'Balancê' has been released in the UK two weeks ago. I didn't know about this as all music from Portugal is completely oblivious to everyone in this country, but reading the Sunday newspapers today I came across the review to her album on the the Observer Music Monthly magazine:

SARA TAVARES Balancê
World Connection £13.99 3/5
Three cultures combine to make music to soothe the heart

This outstanding record, produced by 27-year-old Tavares herself, is a musical, sensitive cross-cultural mix. With a hint of the lonely chill of Cape Verde where she hails from, the urbanity of Lisbon where she lives and the carnival spirit of Brazil that shares the same language, it is filled with rich, sensitive and catchy songs. Tavares voice is so expressive that even the slighty comical English ('I loviu, I neediu') that she slips into doesn't impede her. 'Guisa' is heart arresting, but the album as a whole is a pleasure: delicate, warm, inviting and infectious. Mark Espiner

Then I went on to read the Independent online I found another review to the album there too:

Sara Tavares

Balancê, World Connection

By Andy Gill

Published: 10 February 2006

Sara Tavares is a Cape Verdean singer based in Portugal, but dissatisfied with the narrowly post-colonial role accorded her by both cultures. "I want to be a part of a movement like the African Americans and African Brazilians were," she explains. "Instead of doing the music of their ancestors, they have created this musical identity of their own." It's no surprise, then, that Balancê owes little to the most notable Cape Verdean singer, Cesaria Evora, Tavares preferring a more optimistic approach than the older singer's saudade (melancholy) tendencies. Musically, too, her songs and arrangements are informed more by international influences - the boho-jazz vocal style of Rickie Lee Jones on "Ess Amor", the peppery marimba of "Bom Feeling", the blending of reggae and native coladeira rhythms on "Planeta Sukri", and the twinkling guitar style of "Poka Terra" and "Dam Bo", which recalls King Sunny Ade. It's clear from the way her lyrics skip between Portuguese, English and the Cape Verdean Crioulo, that her identity is broader than most, whether she's advocating equilibrium ("Balancê"), eulogising Lisbon ("Lisboa Kuya") or losing herself in the "sweet despair" of love ("Ess Amor").

Download This: 'Balancê', 'Poka Terra', 'Bom Feeling'

I've always admired Sara Tavares quite a lot. Her career started by (brilliantly) mimicking Whitney Houston on the first edition of TV programme Chuva de Estrelas (Stars in Your Eyes). She was this poor girl living with her grand mother on a Lisbon suburb with this huge magnificent voice. She then went on to be the Portuguese candidate on the Eurovision Song Contest with 'Chamar a música' which gave Portugal one of the best scores ever. [How do I know this - yes I'm a Eurovision fan]

This was 1994 and she was 16 years old. It was obvious that it wasn't the direction to go and clear that it wasn't the one she wanted to pursue.

In '99 she released the album 'Mi Ma Bô' which started to show her interest in exploring her Cape Verde roots and to leave the American r&b anthems behind her. She took 5/6 years to write and produce 'Balancê' which was very well received in Portugal last year when it was released.

Poplastik

”Olá, benvindos ao 86-60-86. O meu nome é Sofia Aparício”.

This was the key sentence said right after "poppa mundi" was played at the of a famouse TV fashion programme in Portugal presented by model/actress Sofia Aparício. "Poppa mundi" was taken from Pop Dell'Arte's album "Sex Symbol" and this was one of the best pop albums of the 90s made in Portugal.

So last time in Lisbon I bought their latest - Poplastik 1985 2006 which is the history of their music for the past 20 years in making Portuguese avant-garde pop.

I remember watching them on TV playing “Querelle”, one of their first singles when I was about 10 and thinking they were very silly – what did I know anyway?

http://www.popdellarte.net/

Adília Lopes

Adília Lopes (1960-)

“I take my poetry very seriously. For me, it is a matter of life or death.”

Adília Lopes is one of the most interesting contemporary Portuguese poetry authors. I was given her "Obra" by Susana and Neia when I left Lisbon to Barcelona about 5 years ago. It had a Paula Rego painting on its cover, and the book is the collection of Lopes poetry until then. What really did it for me was that in her writing she doesn't need fancy words to write beautifully about life's tragedies and banalities.

I will now copy and paste some very interesting articles on Adília Lopes I came across while browsing the web.

Richard Zenith who has translated to English Fernando Pessoa, António Lobo Antunes, and Sophia de Mello Breyner writes on the Poetry International Web about Adília Lopes:

"(...)So what is poetry for Adília Lopes? A number of her poems mention entropy (‘Childhood Memories’, for instance), and her poetic oeuvre may seem, at first glance, like a kingdom of entropy, but in fact her poetry is an attempt to counteract chaos, to establish some order, make connections, put things back together. This recalls the ambition of Sophia de Mello Breyner, a poet much admired by Lopes, but whereas the former longed for prelapsarian perfection, the latter is more pragmatic: she’ll settle for a makeshift whole and doesn’t mind chips and dents. Sophia assumed the voice of an oracle; Adília calls herself a housekeeper (‘The Housekeeper’ is the title of one of her recent books), engaged in trying to straighten out some of the world’s (and her own) confusion. Housecleaning, not therapy. "


The IPLP (Portuguese Institute for the Book and Libraries) has published on its web a small biography on the Author from which I paste the first two paragraphs:

Adília Lopes, poetess, columnist and translator, is the pen-name of Maria José da Silva Viana Fidalgo de Oliveira, who was born in Lisbon on 20th April 1960. She has always lived in Lisbon, actually in the same house, which has belonged to her mother’s family since 1916. Since 1982 she has lived surrounded by cats. “Adília appeared with a poem I wrote in my diary when one of my cats, Faruk, disappeared”, she once said in an interview with Carlos Vaz Marques. Her mother was a biologist, a lecturer in Botany at the Faculty of Science of the University of Lisbon. Her father was a Drawing teacher and deputy headmaster of Pedro de Santarém Secondary School, in Benfica, Lisbon.

Adília Lopes attended two Catholic schools, where she was taught by nuns, and went on to study Physics at the Faculty of Science in Lisbon. However, she dropped out of the course shortly before completing it, due to a schizoid affective psychosis, an illness about which she has always spoken openly, whether in her poetry, columns, lectures or interviews. She gave up studying at the behest of her doctors and began writing, always with the intention of publishing her work.

"O poeta de Pondychéry" has been translated to Italian, French, Dutch, Spanish, and German. None of her books has been translated to English yet.


Useful Links:
Portugal - Poetry International Web - Adília Lopes
Instituto Português do Livro e das Bibliotecas - Adília Lopes biography

why did you betray me so

One of the most interesting things out in record last week in PT was A Naifa's second album "3 segundos antes da maré encher" - "3 seconds before the tide comes in".

This is a project by João Aguardela, Maria Antónia Mendes, e Luís Varatojo that mixes fado with electronica with poetry - electro-fado? The lyrics are poems by new and unknown authors (at least I've never heard of them) who write about life's banalities and tragedies taken for granted.

The promo video for "Monotone" can be seen here.

As it had happened on their previous album here we can also find a poem by one of the most interesting contemporary Portuguese authors, Adília Lopes, on the last song of the album "Porque me traíste tanto" - "Why did you betray me so".

Porque tenho eu frieiras
se nunca tiro as luvas?
porque tenho eu arranhões
se os meus gatos são meigos?
como dizia uma pobre rapariga
que era criada e mal sabia ler
também eu vou dizer
coração partido
pé dormente
vou para a cama
que estou doente
porque me traíste tanto
se os meus gatos são meigos?
porque me atraíste tanto
se nunca tiro as luvas?

Why do I have chilblains
if I never take off my gloves?
why do I have scratches
if my cats are gentle?
as a poor girl who was a maid
and could hardly read once said
I too will say
broken heart
sleeping foot
because I’m sick
I go to bed
why did you betray me so
if my cats are gentle?
why did you attract me so
if I never take off my gloves?

cold vs colder or the return to london

Why is it so cold in London? I guess I notice it more for having returned from Lisbon, where the weather wasn't brilliant but at least it was over 15 Celsius.

Anyway, Lisbon was good.
While I was there:

Anibal Cavaco Silva took charge of the country as our new President - first right-wing President since the '74 Revolution. It was the goodbye to Jorge Sampaio who was in charge for the past 8 years.

Non Stop the Portuguese girl band won the Festival da Cancao which is the Song For Eurovision kind of thing that elects the song for Eurovision. The song is called "Coisas de nada (Make you dance). This is a catchy pop tune - it was my favourite and shhhh!... I voted for it.
It's Doce all over again, over 20 years later - 4 good looking girls (but with better voices) and a catchy tune. You can listen to the live version here and watch the video of that night here.

Benfica beat Liverpool at Anfield Road 2-nil and made their way on the Champions League. They will play Barcelona on the 28th of March and Susana and I will be watching the game in Stockwell that night.

I watched the brilliant Good Night, And Good Luck, and also Capote which I found a bit disappointing. Time constraints made me miss the Portuguese terror movie Coisa Ruim (Evil Thing).