LURA

Slightly throaty with a dark timber and an inner luminosity, Lura's voice unfurls with efoortless elegance over this album's sprightly rhythms. While a number of young Cape Verdean singers have emerged in the wake of the great Cesaria Evora, this marks the 34 year-old out as the melancholy diva's true inheritor. - Telegraph 3/05/09 by M.H. Rating ****

On her 2006 album, M'bem di fora it felt as if Lura's verve was being tempered by the need to sound a bit like Cesaria Evora. But the subsequent success of Mayra Andrade and Sara Tavares has allowed her, and a whole new wave of Cape Verde musicians, to find their own sound. Eclipse will fit neatly into anyone's 'Cape Verde nova' collection alongside Andrade's navega, Tavares' Balance and Thekas's Lonji.
It's every bit as rich, varied and satisfying. And it's the first Lura record to capture the vivacity and variety of her sparkling stage show. The alum is rooted in tradition without being lost in nostalgia. Even wistful mornas like title-track (a B Leza classic) are garnished with stylistic flourished from Portuguese and world music and filtered through contemporary production. there is also, of course, plenty of modern Cape Verdean music here: 'Na Nha Rubera' typifies the arse-wiggling funanas that are all the rage in the islands nowadays; Orfelino' is a morna-tinged ballad; and uptempo numbers like 'Libramor' and 'Mascadjôn' recall coladeira. The album closes with Teofilo Chantre's delicious, goose-pimpling tango 'Canta Um Tango', recorded in collaboration with Armani-suited Neapolitans Kantango. It is surely destinated to be a coktail-bar hit. Lura's voice is magnificient throughout; at times reflective and mournful, at others as euphoric as a carnival samba - Songlines july 2009 by Alex Robinson

Until now, it would have been fair to say that you needed to see this Lisbon-based Cape Verdean singer in the flesh to truly appreciated her charisma and unabashe sexuality. No longer. Eclipse is the work of an artist who has blossomed into full maturity.Lura's musical roots may be more overtly Africa than those of some of her island rivals, but this set does a superb job of covering all the bases, from traditional morna balladry to upbeat samba and hints of reggae, without seeming at all calculated. Her voice is crisp and assertive, and she further extends her range on the tender, electro-tinged Canta um Tango. - Sunday Times 26/04/09 ****

Clive Davis at Union Chapel, N1

Who is the most dynamic performer in world music right now? I can think of no one who can rival the Cape Verdean diva Lura in terms of passion and vivacity. This was a quite spellbinding display by a singer at the height of her powers. Much as I enjoyed her stylish new album M’bem di fora, her live act attained another level altogether.
The one vocalist from Cape Verde that everyone knows is Cesaria Evora, with whom Lura toured early in her career. But while the matronly Evora makes an all but static presence on the concert stage (lighting up a cigarette is about as animated as she becomes), the younger woman is lithe, restless and magnificently unselfconscious. The stately architecture of the Union Chapel may not be the obvious setting for such a force of nature, yet even before the interval, the six-piece band – buoyant acoustic guitar balanced against elegant violin – had set the pews alight.
Born in Portugal in the year that her ancestral homeland achieved independence, Lura initially flirted with more commercial styles before immersing herself in the subtle cross-rhythms of the islands. Nestling in the Atlantic, west of Senegal, the archipelago has long been a meeting point of musical traditions from Africa, Europe and Brazil. If Evora’s glorious music is steeped in echoes of fado, Lura’s inspiration draws more on the African dimension, but with the undulating percussion tempered with a very Brazilian subtlety and sense of colour.
At first it seemed that the chapel’s acoustics might be less than kind to the musicians. But if there were moments when the precisely enunciated lyrics of, say, Ponciana were in danger of losing some of their impact, band and singer adapted superbly. Lura, who still has the looks and energy of a teenager, was mesmerising, plunging into the sultry, hip-swinging beat of the funaná (a dance that was once banned by the colonial authorities) and resting on a chair to beat out the pulse of the batuku, a rhythm derived from the circle chants of washerwomen.
After a tumultuous climax to the first half, she opened the second in more reflective, almost sombre, mood. She delivers bossa-tinged ballads with as much authority as the up-tempo dance anthems. A magical evening, in short.

- The Times, May 24, 2007