Sara Tavares - Xinti

(World Connection)

Portuguese singer Sara Tavares writes amazing songs, delivering them with one of the most shape-shifting voices around, a fusion of the gentle and wistful with subtly buoyant rhythm.

Xinti which means ‘feel’, tells its own story with bewitching songs like ‘Sumanai’ about music as the heart’s voice quenching the thirst, moving to ‘Touch of Light’ to ‘Wayfarer’ to ‘Free Fall’ all of it ‘Of the Soul’. The whole effect is poetically magical and while there are various male musicians involved Tavares plays all the guitars and the producer and engineer are both women. Play it again and again.