Voz Di Sanicolau - Fundo De Marê Palinha 10"
In 1976, seven Cabo Verdean musicians going by the name Voz di Sanicolau gathered in a small recording studio in Rotterdam where they laid down an album of fearsome coladeira songs inspired by the music of their home island of São Nicolau.
The album Fundo de Marê Palinha is the only trace of the short existence of the group Voz di Sanicolau. 44 years after the recording of this album in a studio in Rotterdam, home to the Cape Verdean diaspora, the German label Analog Africa is once again playing the history teacher by offering to re-release this exceptional record.
Recorded in just a few days, the group released six dynamic and spontaneous tracks, inspired by the music of their island of São Nicolau, located in the north of the archipelago. Appearing in the 1930s in São Vicente, the coladeira – an accelerated version of the morna – is a very popular genre in Cape Verde. Voz di Sanicolau appropriates its codes and glorifies the style in its own way thanks to high-pitched electric guitars subtle keyboards and dancing rhythms, all accompanied by the cavaquinho, a small Portuguese four-string guitar.
The album took only a few days to record, which may explain the unexpected urgency that fires each track. Treble-soaked electric guitar lines snake back and forth through percussion-and-cavaquinho driven rhythms rooted in the sound of the islands established by the previous generation of Cabo Verdean émigrés; subtle keyboards wash through the background, and the vocals, traded between Joana do Rosario and Tô-Zé, alternately push the music forward and soar above it. The resulting album is both deeply felt and fiercely executed, and in its grooves one hears the sound of some of the finest Cabo Verdean musicians of their era locked in complete unity of purpose.
It should have been the beginning of something extraordinary; but the pressures of making ends meet forced the musicians back to their day jobs, and Voz di Sanicolau vanished as quickly as they had appeared, leaving their lone album, Fundo de Marê Palinha, as sole proof of their existence. Forty-four years later the album sounds as fresh as it did the day it was recorded. It is unknown if dutch sound engineer Frans Rolland, who oversaw the recordings, knew he was helping to make history: during these sessions, Joana do Rosario, whose majestic vocals were crucial to the sound of Voz di Sanicolau, became the first Cabo Verdean woman ever to appear on a long playing record.
- From Surfing The Odyssey
Tracklist:
1. Funde De Marê Palinha
2. Italiana
3. Marê Lili
4. Nha Antónia Engracia Popular
5. Ribera Prata
6. Abole
2. Italiana
3. Marê Lili
4. Nha Antónia Engracia Popular
5. Ribera Prata
6. Abole
About this product: this 180g 10" EP is a limited edition of 1500 copies, comes with download code. To be played at 33 ⅓ RPM.