Maria

Within the first few seconds of Maria, Carminho makes one of the boldest moves in her career so far: she single-handedly creates a new fado, getting rid of all the traditional instruments, singing ‘A Tecedeira’ a capella. It's a challenge she addresses herself: how far can she allow herself to go while taking fado into its rawer nature? Does voice on its own qualify as fado, without the usually mandatory Portuguese guitar? It would amount to little more than a curious exercise if it wasn't for such a rapturous rendering.

Since she first came on the scene with her debut called simply Fado in 2009, Carminho has struggled with what it means to make her own path without betraying the tradition in which she was raised. She flirted with both Brazilian and pop music – there's even a track on Maria, ‘Pop Fado’, that playfully discusses this – but she never lost track of her roots and a personal vision that balances the classical repertoire with a subtle modern approach.

Maria, her fourth fado album, kicks off with that total instrumental strip down, but also finds Carminho venturing into the electric guitar accompaniment of ‘Estrela’ and adds a tasteful pedal steel to splendid tracks like ‘O Menino e a Cidade’. And then there's the Baden Powell-inspired guitar she sings along to in the stunning ‘Desengano’. Yes, she's done it again.