Portugal: Fado'. (13 Titles Incl. Ai Vida Ausente Preludio Post-Scriptum Lisboa De Paixoe

When Cristina Branco sings, she makes the pleasures of heartbreak and the aching beauty of desperation seem like something to long for. Her smooth alto has a timeless, haunted quality, marked by a vibrato that sounds like it's stifling a torrent of grief. Her emotive reading of fado classics has brought new life to the genre, a ballad form often called the Portuguese blues. Fado, like the blues, was born when African workers in Portugal adapted the guitar to their own music. The term probably comes from the Portuguese fadiado--"tired"--because this mournful, minor-key music was usually heard in the ghetto after sundown. When Europeans adopted fado they added elaborate lyrics to a style already full of unfulfilled passion. Branco's yearning vocals here are complemented by the melancholic work of guitarists Alexandre Silva and Custódio Castelo, who add unbearable tension to songs already dripping with overwrought emotion. --j. poet