Hello Cabo Verde

‘Fazê Gat’, the opening track on this rather lovely album, finds Adê singing gently in a duet with fellow Cape Verdean singer Jenifer Solidade over finger-picked Spanish guitar, mournful accordion from the Brazilian maestro Mestrinho and supple African percussion. It sums up all that’s good about this second album by a young singer who grew up listening to Cesaria Evora but picked up the guitar due to his love of Brazilian music.

Now resident in Barcelona, he qualified as a pharmacist and only decided to pursue a career in music in 2017, when he released his first album, Branku na Pretu. All the promise of that record and more is realised here in a glorious fusion of Brazilian and African flavours with the Cape Verdean rhythms of morna, batuque and coladeira. His voice is so soft that on first listen it might sound bland, but further attention reveals nuanced layers of subtle understatement in the style of so many of the great Brazilian bossa nova singers. The string arrangements on ‘Sol di Penose’ and ‘Resposta di Kriola’ are a bittersweet delight, ‘Tabanka Santa Cruz’ is a joyous carnival with its horns and whistles and the title-track is a gentle, lilting lullaby. A name to watch.