Dentro Desse Mar

The accordion might sound neither very dancy nor particularly occult, but this quartet from Águeda near Porto do something with their squeezeboxes that pushes the envelope – or bellows – away from the melancholic pavement/riverbank and towards a more ethereal, experimental space. From opening track, ‘Azáfama’, with its mesmerising minimalism to folksy, almost shanty-ish ‘São João’ and the meditative, Raúl Barboza-style ‘Oniris’, their melodies and harmonies are so taut and tidy they sound like a single, rather complex instrument – a harpsichord with the depth of a synth. Cello, piano and clarinet are deftly spliced in beneath the surface of this collective sound. Percussion throughout is discreet (bar a brief flourish on ‘Soldado’).

Three tracks feature vocals – ‘As Viajantes’ with Zélia Duncan, ‘O Teu Olhar’ with the superb fadista Carminho and ‘Dessa Ilha’ with Dora Morelenbaum. Voices, too, are woven skilfully into the whole. As the title (which translates as ‘Inside This Sea’) suggests, the cycle of 11 songs speaks to the waves and rhythms of the ocean and also, perhaps, the silences and sounds buried deep beneath its surface. Innovative, quietly intense, Dentro Desse Mar will make those who normally speed up at the sight of an accordion slow down and listen.