Mãe

Mãe (Mother) is Liana’s take on motherhood in our present age of anxiety. It’s her fourth solo album (she has also recorded with the cross-cultural band, the Stockholm Lisboa Project). The ten tracks here encompass the whole gamut of thoughts and feelings, from joy to reflections on aging or worries about the state of the planet and education. The material has been specially written by a variety of lyricists and composers, including such luminaries as António Zambujo, Custódio Castelo and Mário Pacheco.

The approach owes as much to musical theatre as it does to the fado tradition. Up-tempo numbers such as ‘Notícia de Abertura’ and ‘De Mal a Pior’ are highly successful: witty, inventive and with a very contemporary sense of irony. Less sympathetic for many listeners will be the sentimental soul searching of tracks such as ‘Velha Mãe’ (a duet of voice and piano), which seem dated – sincere without being incisive and of a style reminiscent of the era of stage musicals of several decades ago. Nevertheless, the concept is an engaging one, which, along with Liana’s voice (sounding ever better), both make this recording stand out from the run-of-the-mill.