- Cloud Valley Music website -
- Andrew Cronshaw website -
- Andrew Cronshaw MySpace -

- Back to Reviews Introduction page -

Written in Folk Roots issue 148, 1995

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Musical Traditions Of Portugal
Smithsonian Folkways CD SF40435 (1995)

NÉ LADEIRAS
Traz Os Montes
EMI-Valentim de Carvalho 7243 8 31806 2 2 (1994)

Number 9 in the Traditional Music of the World series is, as one might expect of a release by the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies in conjunction with UNESCO’s International Council for Traditional Music and the International Institute for Traditional Music, an impressive collection, coming in a box with a thick booklet in English and Portuguese.
      Don’t be put off by the weight of academia, though; these 30 recordings by Max Peter Baumann and Tiago de Oliveira Pinto are a highly listenable and substantial introduction to the regional styles and textures of Portuguese traditional musics, from bagpipes, flutes and drums and a song about rapist soldiers recorded in the north-east, through religious and ritual songs both solo and in powerful acapella ensemble, a generous helping of instrumental fado from the Quarteto de Guitarras de Coimbra, to dance music bands, ranchos folkloricos, one from the Tejo featuring accordion, triangle, guitar, cana and clay pot, and two more from the north-west incorporating vocals.

      Né Ladeiras on Traz Os Montes sings traditional material from the north-east region of Portugal, Trás os Montes (“behind the mountains”), specifically the area of the border town of Miranda do Douro. The singer and her music are thus in origin strongly rooted, but this album in its modern, elegant but robust-textured and non-washy production looks outward to a wider audience.
      She’s a fine singer, and the tunes are varied and memorable with arrangements by keyboards, bagpipe, flutes and accordion player Ricardo Dias using Portuguese and mainstream instrumentation. Touring and the right distribution or licensing (the EMI-Valentim de Carvalho deal is apparently just for Portugal) should, on the evidence of this release, make Né Ladeiras a welcome Portuguese presence in world music.


© 1995 Andrew Cronshaw
 

You're welcome to quote from reviews on this site, but please credit the writer and fRoots.

Links:
fRoots - The feature and review-packed UK-based monthly world roots music magazine in which these reviews were published, and by whose permission they're reproduced here.

It's not practical to give, and keep up to date, current contact details and sales sources for all the artists and labels in these reviews, but try Googling for them, and where possible buy direct from the artists.
CDRoots.com in the USA, run by Cliff Furnald, is a reliable and independent online retail source, with reviews, of many of the CDs in these reviews; it's connected to his excellent online magazine Rootsworld.com 

For more reviews click on the regions below

NORDIC        BALTIC        IBERIA (& islands)   

CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE, & CAUCASUS   

OTHER EUROPEAN        AMERICAS        OTHER, AND WORLD IN GENERAL

- Back to Reviews Introduction page -