Cartografado

It is telling that the very first seconds in Cartografado are evocative not of fado, but of samba and choro. Soon opener ‘Tudo o que Não Há’ turns into a full fado, but those seconds work as the initial hint that, for her fourth album, Carla Pires is conjuring several musical geographies into her world. What is paradoxically more stunning is that while opening herself to those disperse references – whether singing French poet Paul Éluard, Brazilian songwriter Ivans Lins or Argentinian poet Alfonsina Storni – she sounds ever more like herself. Lyricist Manuela de Freitas perfectly sums it up in ‘Viajar Assim’, when she has Carla singing ‘Sou outra constantemente/e cada vez sou mais eu’ (loosely ‘I am constantly changing and still I am more and more myself’).

Thoroughly working with songwriter Amélia Muge (here as musical director) and musician André M Santos (of klezmer band Melech Mechaya, here as producer), Pires has produced the most solid record of her discography. While clearly setting her roots in fado she includes bits of flamenco on ‘Em Frente ao Muro’, traditional percussive sounds on ‘Vida Nova’, samba on ‘Cartografado’ and a chamber-like approach to fado on ‘O Tempo e a Vida’. All of these are highlights on a record where Pires proves she has beautifully matured as a fadista. When we listen to the title-track or ‘Sei de Um Silêncio’ she comes across as a fully confident and sharp singer.