Artist name – Misia
Album name – Ritual
Label – Erato

Think the blues but sung in Portuguese - Fado in Portuguese means Fate and the music is lyrical, sentimental and almost a lament. Very simple melodies, Misia’s very strong (and mournful) voice is accompanied by bass, acoustic and Portuguese guitar (fado guitar). Even if the music (which includes Fado guitar) sounds upbeat in a couple of tracks, don’t be fooled! The lyrics are always sad (the insert has translations of all the song lyrics), always mournful. While performing fado music the singer - the fadista - stands dressed in black in front of the audience, and behind the fadista are the musicians (the bare minimum is one fado guitar and one 6 string). The music for this album was recorded the old-fashioned way live in the studio, with single takes (for each song) and no sound mixing, using an old-style microphone.

Track 2 –This is a tribute to one of the most famous Fado artists – Amalia Rodrigues. The lyrics are part of a poem written the day Amalia died and the music for this is composed by Carlos Gonsalves, who composed for Amalia in the later years.

Tracks 6,9 and 10 – These tracks are the best of the melancholy, yearning numbers on the album.

Track 3 and track 7 – Slightly upbeat and even jaunty. A nice change of pace from the rest of the tracks (till you read the translated lyrics).

Track 13: Only the piano accompanies Misia. Beautiful. Evocative of the way Amalia used to rehearse at the piano (see insert).