Columna Música 1CM0093 label website
The most memorable voices are those containing shards of imperfections. Think Sezen Aksu or the damaged Portuguese guitar of Carlos Paredes. Mar de Fado introduces us to the polished yet slightly tweaked pipes of Nuria Piferrer aka Névoa filled with dark echoes and occasional glitters of metal. She is accompanied by Eduardo Iniesta on Portuguese guitar and mandola, Joan Garrobé on classical Spanish guitar, Guillermo Prats on double and acoustic bass and Alcides Rodrigues on percussion. Névoa was born in 1971 and started singing at 14 as part of the Youth Choir of Orfeo Catala. In 1994, she joined the ensemble Lo Poder del Cant, recorded a CD and won the Éxit Contest. in 1995, she joined De Soca-rel and recorded Lo Temps. By 1999, she had become a member of the Greek Vradiaki formation and collaborated on their recording Qatre de cors by Eduard Iniesta. Her immersion in Fado commenced with "Fado i fades" which she sang for Iniesta's Hi ha quelcom que no vabe project. With occasional undercurrents of Brazilian Bossa Nova, backup singing, double bass underpinnings and other non-typical traditional Fado elements, Mar de Fado benefits from the extensive background of arranger and musical director Eduardo Iniesta. He has led Temps 9, De Soca-rel, Lo Poder del Cant, The Ritual Gospel Singers, Ars Tunae, Vradiaki and Els Llobarros. He has also directed numerous musical theater productions and collaborated with artists as diverse as Silvia Comas, Marina Rossell, Lluis Lach, Els Ocults and Placido Domingo. These varied influences pooling into the present album create a very fetching makeover of the genre which sometimes seems to elude those who grew up within it. It makes one curious how Névoa has stretched out even farther with Fado Distraído which also appears on Columna Música and adds Manel Camp on piano. On Mar de Fado, the opener "Bem Sei" recalls a particular Kate Bush number whose name I can't recall while "As Ruas de Lisboa" is a wonderfully lilting Bossa-inflected Brazilian Jazz number with solo bass riffs that I'll include in some future compilations for friends. "Ilusão" is the one solitary -- and perfectly captured -- tribute to Amália Rodrigues while "Gaivota", despite based on a 2|2 beat, exudes the circular sway of a slow waltz infused with the mournful cries so typical of Fado. They begin dark and foreboding in the lower register and then peak in emphasized high passages not afraid to bare the occasional edge . "O Cacilheiro" includes some very nimble atypical high-speed vocalizing and minor-key blue notes in the guitars while "Cancão de Alcipe" is the quintessentially suspended Fado vals, rendered here as a lyrical instrumental. "Desejo" sports a semi-spoken call-back motif juxtaposed against Névoa's chromatically descending melody which becomes a full-blown chorus in the end. Like the just-reviewed Velho Fado by Jorge Fernando, Mar de Fado is a prime example for how specific genres undergo modernization and, in best-case scenarios as with these two albums, create important crossover points so that non-purist can enter the folds and enjoy what otherwise might remain exclusive to the hardcore insiders.