Avant L’Équinoxe

This Franco-Brazilian quartet is the product of a friendship forged online between France's Sophie Magnani (singer) and multi-instrumentalist Hervé Morisot, and Brazilians Filipe Dourado (cavaquinho) and Wendell Almeida (percussion). Unable to play live due to lockdown, they began writing and jamming on the digital airwaves. Their first album is the result: 11 songs penned by various combinations of group members, with resulting shades of samba, bossa, chanson and Cape Verdean music. In fact, it feels closest in some respects to the Lusophone Coladera, whose debut La Dôtu Lado was a Top of the World album in Songlines June 2019 (#148).

If this lacks the sharp focus of that delicious album, it's probably partly due to the vagaries of the Franco-Portuguese linguistic and musical mix. Sophie Magnani's vocals are crystal-clear whatever language she sings in, and the backing throughout is on the money, but not all the songs – about love, desire, family, friendship and the general beauty of life – linger as long as, say, ‘Pagina Vazia’, ‘Dis-le-Moi’ or the gorgeous ‘Gabi’. Nevertheless, the upbeat feel and optimistic message of this amicable bi-national collaboration, recorded in France and mixed and mastered in Brazil, leave a warm comforting glow.