It's the end of the year, so it must be time for the publication of the year end "best of" lists!

Cotonete have published a list of the top Portuguese national albums of 2009, as listened to on their site. They note, that six of the ten are debut albums, making it a strong year for new talent.

The list, in full:

1. OqueStrada - Tasca Beat
2. Carminho - Fado
3. Teratron - Teratron
4. Legendary Tiger Man - Femina
5. Cristina Branco - Kronos
6. Norberto Lobo - Pata Lenta
7. Diabo na Cruz - Virou
(tie)Aquaparque - É Isso Aí
9. Micro Audio Waves - Zoetrope
10. Virgem Suta - Virgem Suta

Sound + Vision have also published their version of the list, with more of an emphasis on releases slightly outside the mainstream. Their list reads as follows:

1. B Fachada, B Fachada
2. António Pinho Vargas, Solo II
3. Três Cantos, Três Cantos ao Vivo
4. Real Combo Lisbonense, Real Combo Lisbonense EP
5. Os Quais, Meio Disco
6. Fernando Ribeiro, Desiderata – A Junção do Bem
7. Tiago Sousa, Insónia
8. Bernardo Sassetti, Um Amor de Perdição
9. Micro Audio Waves, Zoetrope
10. Samuel Úria, Nem Lhe Tocava

Readers of Portuguese music magazine BLITZ have been participating in a vote to determine the "30 ultimate Portuguese songs of the last five decades." To reflect the vote, BLITZ have now put together a page detailing videos of some of those songs.

The list includes everything from José Afonso to Linda Martini and Rui Veloso. If you'd like to have a look and a listen, visit the winner's page here.

How is that for an incendiary headline? I confess, this might be a quote from an interview, taken out of context. Next on the agenda is an attempt to translate from the interview itself...

According to Blitz Magazine:

After the album Amália Today, Sónia Tavares (of The Gift) confessed: "I'm still not a fan of fado."

In an interview with Bairro Alto, (RTP2 programme), the singer spoke of the success of the album Amália Today and the future of The Gift.

In the interview conducted by José Fialho Gouveia, broadcast last night, the singer spoke about the future of The Gift as the members being "anxious" to start writing a new album, and she confessed that even after giving voice to several Amalia Rodrigues songs, she still continued to not like fado, because she thought this style of music boring.

If you'd like to watch the interview, there is a link here.

Source: Blitz

Noiserv are to visit the UK for the first time beginning next week, with a mini tour taking in cities in Scotland and England, including a gig on the 13th of November at The Angel, in London.

Noiserv's debut album One Hundred Miles From Thoughtlessness (Merzbau) was released this past October. Noiserv is David Santos, who creates melodic melancholia with vocal, electronics and a host of effects. His music runs the gamut from singer-songwriter contemplations to Depeche Mode electronica-fests. You can get the full equipment list and a bit more biography on the MySpace.

They have quite a lovely official website published in both English and Portuguese, composed of sweet line drawings and some clever interactive soundscapes. Have a look here.

The Boy George interview with Jonathan Ross was just broadcast here in the UK, and at the end of the interview (a quite fascinating detailing of his prison stint), Boy George promoted his upcoming single "Amazing Grace". The single will include a vocal contribution by the fado singer Ana Lains.

According to the website BoyGeorgeUK.com, it appears that Lains' vocals will be integrated with George's on the single. Visit BoyGoergeUK.com if you'd like to hear a sample of the track.

To learn more about Ana Lains, visit her MySpace.

I am positively gutted that I can't get to Portugal to see the "os três cantores" gigs (José Mário Branco, Sérgio Godinho and Fausto) in Lisbon and Porto. This is a collaboration which may never happen again. It has been described as "a concert without a unifying theme, other than this clear conceit: the reunion of three artists who worked to modernize Portuguese popular music. 'We are the heirs of Zeca Afonso, of Edmundo Bettencourt and all who came before, but we are modernizers of our cultural legacy,' said Fausto."

Diario de Noticias have published a few articles on this landmark get-together, which is specifically in celebration of the Fausto album Por Este Rio acima.

Briefly, the Angolan background of Fausto deeply influenced his work: he spent his childhood and adolescence in the former Portuguese colony, where he formed his first band, Os Rebeldes. In 1968 he was attending college in Lisbon, where he got closer to the student movement and the political activism of the time. It was there that he would feel the influence of musicians like José Afonso and Adriano Correia de Oliveira. "Shortly after landing in Portugal on 30 April 74, I met Fausto," said José Mário Branco. "At the time, I heard some songs that he had just finished recording for the second album, and I felt a great complicity, musically and poetically."

It is through Jose Mario that Fausto would know Sérgio Godinho, in 1974. "Although we played together in many shows, but I didn't know his music before his arrival to Portugal," says Godinho.

In 1982, Fausto edited Por Este Rio acima, the first disc of a trilogy about the Lusitanian diaspora (which would continue with Terra Ardente, the second disc, in 1994, after a wait of 12 years). Por Este Rio acima was a work that would mark irrevokeably Portuguese popular music. A Ópera Mágica do Cantor Maldito (2003) is the last record of originals from the composer, who is currently finishing the last chapter of this trilogy. "[The third of the trilogy] will be a double album, with more than 20 songs," said Fausto. "The disc will have orchestrations by José Mário Branco. It's a thing we never did before."

Um marco chamado 'Por Este Rio acima'

Um palco para três lendas da música portuguesa

Sadly, You Should Go Ahead have decided to call it a day as a band, as reported by Santos Da Casa. Here's a quick translation of their statement:

"YSGA have reached the end of their road. After nearly five years of togetherness, two albums and many concerts, we divulged musically and this dictated for us the end of our path.

Thanks to everyone who accompanied us on this adventure and we hope to see you soon. All the band members continue to make music, none of them are to become fisherman...

See ya later!"

Cotonete entitle the X-Wife tour a "mini-tour" but eight cities in total is sizeable, if you ask me. The Portuguese trio visit the following cities and venues:

16th October - Springfield MO (Outland Ballroom)
17th - Kansas City MO(Czar Bar)
18th -­ Chicago IL (Abbey Pub)
20th -­ Philadelphia PA(The Barbary Philadelphia)
21st ­- NYC (Union Pool)
21st - NYC (Public Assembly)
22nd - NYC (88 Palace)
23rd - NYC (Littlefield)

The band have been nominated for the European MTV Awards for the category of Best Portuguese Act (naturally). The full list of nominees is:

* Buraka Som Sistema
* David Fonseca
* Os Pontos Negros
* X-Wife
* Xutos e Pontapés


Cotonete

It is ten years, since the passing of one of the greatest voices in fado.

Most of the Portuguese broadsheets and major blogs are running stories to commemorate this date, here are a few:

Diário de Notícias is running several articles, including a page dedicated to videos.

Sound + Vision is running a personal commemoration.

BLITZ have run an article which includes links to other articles.

Finally, Grandes Som have included an article detailing a dedicated radio station called amalia.fm.

Twenty districts, and 39 bands and/or musicians... that's Quilómetro Zero, an indespensible television archive of new Portuguese bands broadcast on RPT2.

The series is hosted by JP Simões (vocalist of Belle Chase Hotel)and he loans his suave tones to a variety of band interviews. The series is now an archive, but the website contains a collection of excellent and exclusive performances from the likes of The Weatherman, Norberto Lobo, Stowaways, U:Click and more.

Because it's the start of the football season, and everything always starts on a high at the beginning... so spare a thought for those who can't go any lower. :)

Francisco Ribeiro, a former member of Madredeus, is about to launch a new project with the help of Lisa Gerrard (Dead Can Dance) and Natalia Casanova (Diva).

The project calls itself Desiderata, and the album is entitled A Junção do Bem. The album is scheduled to be in shops from November of this year.

The album will be recorded in September at Casa da Música in collaboration with the Orquestra Nacional do Porto (Porto National Orchestra), led by conductor Mark Stephenson (winner of an Oscar for his music for the animation film Peter and the Wolf).

Musical contributions to the project will also be given by Marta Plantier, José Perdigão and Pedro Jóia on guitar.

Source: Blitz

RIP Clinic.

By far the most accurate (and beautiful) compendium of all the summer music festivals in Portugal, comes from Diário de Notícias.

If you'd like to know the lineup for everything from Optimus Alive! to Jazz Em Agosto, then please do visit it here.

peixe : avião have posted two new songs on their MySpace: the tracks "Oito" and "Tirar e Voltar a Dar". You can listen to those songs here.

Happy Portugal Day!



Video provided courtesy of Santos Da Casa.

That's right, it's a work in progress right now, but I'm working on making this place even lovelier...

The new album by Rodrigo Leão, entitled A Mãe, contains a very special collaborator: Stuart A. Staples, vocalist from Tindersticks.

Staples both wrote and performed the words to the track "This Light Holds So Many Colours" and will perform the track with Leão in a concert at Casino Estoril, Portugal on 4th June.

Leão explained "I make intuitive music, and during the creative process of this project two voices were imprinted upon my mind: Melingo (Argentine singer of the tango 'No Sè Nada'), and Stuart A. Staples, vocalist of Tindersticks. Despite not knowing them personally, I contacted them and I was fortunate enough to get them to come to Lisbon to work with me. In the case of Stuart, in addition to adding his voice, he also wrote the lyrics to 'This Light Holds So Many Colors."

A Mãe (Mother) is a "pointedly melancholic" record recorded in memory of Leão's mother, and made in various locations such as Goa or New York.

Source: Blitz

The new album by folk/alt songwriter Old Jerusalem, entitled Two Birds Blessing (Bor Land), is streaming now on MySpace. Well, the poster says it all really: think slow and stately alt-country, along the lines of Will Oldham or Giant Sand.

Want a listen? Go here.

A Trompa have set up a super graphical page, cataloguing "Portuguese music" shows on Portuguese radio, set out day by day. They describe it as "a space dedicated to all the radio programmes that play exclusively Portuguese music... or nearly exclusively." And it looks lovely! You can have a look at the schedule here.

If you're a gigging musician (or just someone looking for equipped auditoriums in Portugal) this is an interesting site.

Mapa De Salas includes thumbnail images of auditoriums and theatre rooms across the whole of Portugal, as well as the location on a map.

Optimus, the Portuguese mobile carrier, have linked up with Henrique Amaro (Antena 3) to deliver a series of free compilations, showcasing Portuguese music.

Through October, the series will showcase 18 groups/musicians, and will be exclusive material as well as "interesting" collaborations.

The tracks will be available to download free from the Optimus site, or available in physical format in FNAC stores in Portugal.

A spokesperson for Optimus, Hugo Figueiredo, said in an interview with Agência Lusa, that this is a way to "associate the brand of the telecommunications operator to music".

"It's a way to not only create a habit of free and legal downloads, but also to help establish new ways of disseminating music."

So, if anyone doubted the value of music... it still has value as a brand enforcer. And for the artists involved, this is a wonderful piece of exposure.

Source: DN

If you happen to be in Lisbon between 9th and 11th of April, there's a great little "mini Lusatanian" music festival happening at Santiago Alquimista. The hotly-tipped (and splendidly named in my opinion, although not search engine friendly!) doismileoito, and personal favourites Feromona, will be featured along with many others.

This festival is dedicated to new Portuguese music.

The lineup (each night also features a DJ):

9th April
Room 1:
doismileoito
Feromona
Oioai

Room 2:
Samuel Úria
João e a Sombra

10th April
Room 1:
If Lucy Fell
Murdering Tripping Blues
Gnu

Room 2:
Press Play
Tsunamiz

11th April
Room 1:
Farra Fanfarra
Anonima Nuvolari
The Ratazanas

Room 2:
Atma
Anaidcram

Venue: "Festival Novos Fados" at Santiago Alquimista (Alfama), in Lisbon

Thanks to Cotonete for the story.

Sérgio Godinho, the Portuguese poet, composer, and singer, returns to the stage as a actor, touring widely through Portugal in the play "Onde Vamos Morar" by José Maria Vieira Mendes.

Story courtesy of DN.

The first video from Corsage, to promote their new album Finito L'Amore.

The title of the song? Why, its "Dried Up, River Blues".

Visit here.

According to Cotonete, Norton are preparing to release a new single on 23rd March.

The single is a re-working of the Technotronic barnstorming classic "Pump Up The Jam", but in a Portuguese style I suppose! The video will be released on the same day.

If you simply can't wait, the band have made available a free download, a remix from their recent album Kersche. For that, follow the link here.

I read with dismay a Facebook message from Miguel Santos, which regrets to inform us, that this year's Atlantic Waves festival, an annual promotion of exploratory Portuguese music in London, has been cancelled.

Here is the message in part:

--------------------
Subject: No more ATLANTIC WAVES!!!!!!

The festival is dead, long live the festival!

I am very sorry to tell you that the ATLANTIC WAVES festival belongs now to the past. I programmed 15 concert nights for the 2008 festival, the majority were censured and only 7 did finally happen. Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation has decided not to support again the festival, neither let me continue it outside the Foundation and therefore it will not happen again, leaving a big gap in the promotion of Portuguese music and musicians outside Portugal. I believe Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation is being ill advised and that decision will make more damage than good but I will say no more about it here.

The good news is that RED ORANGE is doing a new festival called LIFEM: London International Festival of Exploratory Music, 04-07 Nov 09 and for further news you can join the group here: http://www.facebook.com/groups.php?id=609007428&gv=12#/group.php?gid=41700687841
--------------------

Further reading, including quotes from Miguel Santos, can be read in the Ípsilon article posted later today...

The Weatherman is releasing a new record, entitled Jamboree Park At The Milky Way, on 30th March.


This is his first album since 2006's Cruisin' Alaska, where he played all the instruments himself. I'm not entirely certain if he would have done the same on his new album, as the description promises many string arrangements (or is that simply my bad translation?)

The Weatherman is Alexandre Monteiro, from Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal. Monteiro says of his new record "this record reflects a demand for something that suggested an association between a thing attached to land (the more folk side of my music) and an idea of space exploration. You could say that the record has one foot on the ground but its eyes trained toward space." And as for playing his album live: "I think it will have great results in large spaces because the music is exciting. The songs that I wrote for this record are authentic and potent hymns. They are a type of song to be chanted, complimenting the privileged vistas of outer space."

This is rather nice! Portuguese blog A Nova Música Portuguesa is running a list, updated regularly, of all the live music festivals taking place in Portugal over 2009. Sweet!

For the non-Portuguese speaking music fans out there, Má Fama is a wonderful source blog for what's happening in Portuguese music right now. Many of their postings are in both Portuguese and English, so go there and start reading! They don't post very often, but when they do post, it's quality. And the blog also operates a radio programme, go to their website for more information.

Oh, this is rather nice! Cotonete is sponsoring a site where Portuguese celebrities and musicians of note have created "radios" showing off their musical taste. A good place to go, to hear the great and the good of the Portuguese scene.

The most recent posting is for Dead Combo, but the archive includes selections from X-Wife, Mafalda Arnauth, Adolfo Luxúria Canibal (Mão Morta), David Fonseca and more...

Well, according to Cotonete, the hot Portuguese groups of 2009 will be the fadista Carminho, the indie rock of Doismileoito (compared to Ornatos Violeta) and the experimental hip hop of DJ Ride.

I am always pleased to read Nuno Galopim's postings in Sound + Vision, because I'll always pick up a valuable musical tidbit there. And one of his valuable tips for me, was António Pinho Vargas, the contemporary classicist and jazz musician.

I was scared off at first, because a comment on a music blog described him as "neither quite Elton John nor Richard Clayderman." Actually, this description is wide of the mark.

There is a whole period for António Pinho Vargas which, it's true, I haven't concentrated on: his contemporary jazz period. There are some great YouTube clips here which showcase Vargas with a jazz group backing, performing works like "Tom Waits" and "Dança dos pássaros". But it's not really the jazz period which attracted me: it is his interpretation of those works on his current CD Solo which I think showcase the beauty of these compositions.

In fact, António Pinho Vargas has much more in common with Stars Of The Lid on his Solo CD, than Richard Clayderman. In the Solo work, tracks like "General Complex" or "Funerais" show his compositional prowess to the full.

Have a look at this YouTube video (probably a fan video) for his composition "Dinky Toys":



There is an English biography located here in his official website.

Here's a thing... a spoken word project, made superior due to the quality of the music. The new album by O Maquinista arrives 2nd February 2009.

O Maquinista, which features the vocals of João Branco Kyron (Hipnótica) is exactly one of those rare things: a music and spoken word project, where the music is as strong as the word. The music is a wonderful, filmic and spacey thing, something like Jon Hassell mixed with Dead Combo. Use of word is actually quite spare, which allows the ambient soundbed to be dreamily expressed.

Sounds interesting? Listen here.

(Doismileoito)

Nuno Galopim (Radio Radar/Diário de Notícias) has compiled his list of bands to watch for 2009. Among the various highly-tipped non-Portuguese acts, there's two Portuguese bands to watch. As follows:

Os Golpes
Lisboa, Portugal
To listen: MySpace

Doismileoito
Maia, Portugal
To Listen: MySpace

Of course this won't be the definitive list... keep watching!

According to Blitz, the new album by Legendary Tiger Man, Feminina, displays an ambitious "feminine" theme and will include contributions by Peaches, Asia Argento (Italian actress), Becky Lee, Phoebe Killdeer, Dorit Chrysler (on the theremin), Maria de Medeiros (actress), Rita Redshoes, Rita Braga and Claudia Efe (of Micro Audio Waves).

The record will be first be released in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada, with subsequent distribution in the US, Italy, Greece and Germany.

Want the new Feromona album for free? Well, you can have it.

Just follow the link here.

1. "Download do disco"

2. ... fill in the form

3. Click "send"

Now I'm just waiting to see what happens... thanks to A Trompa for the tip!

It's very strange to write about a Portuguese band... called the Portugals. Something in me fights against it...

Still, at least your name does half the promotion. They don't sing in Portuguese though, mostly English.

They run a nice line of spacey atmospheric rock, you could call it shoegazing in the vein of Ride.

Have a listen over at their MySpace.

You can also watch their video:

As this article from Ipsilon points out: "In Portugal, he is a popstar."

I thought Dreams In Colour a splendid pop album, much as I thought Rita Redshoes released a tremendous album. I simply don't understand why these artists have not been successful in English speaking countries. Why no licensing, and why no promotion? Where is the will?

For whatever reason, David Fonseca's album was licensed by Universal to... Greece, Italy and Spain. And he was sent to SXSW. Why? I don't think this gave him the support he needed.

Here you go: splendid pop song.