Maria João - Songs for Shakespeare [CD]

Espuma Preta

£13.48

Format: CD
Catalogue No.: OG004
Barcode: 885150706107
Release Date: 04 Nov 2022
Genre: Acid Jazz

The words of Shakespeare and the music and vocals of Portugal’s singer supreme Maria Joao’s electronic project OGRE – a perfectly poetic combination and an album for the ages. "Songs for Shakespeare" is a labor of love, which has been growing in the back of the minds of Maria João and João Farinha, partners for more than ten years in the jazz/electronic project OGRE, for at least seven years and finally came to fruition in 2022. The eight original songs of this album take the listener on a poetic trip, a mind blowing journey in sound. Starting with the sonnet “Look In Thy Glass”, a dramatic melody over an orchestrated head-nod groove, through the almost industrial Samba beats of “The Lunatic, The Lover And The Poet” or the string laden balladry of “Love Looks Not With The Eyes” and the cinematic elegance of “Romeo”, the snarky keyboard-wizardry and straight beats of “Willow”, the driving “The Man That Hath No Music In Himself” (including a perfectly technoid break), the moody and melancholic hymn “Sigh No More Ladies” the album finishes with a trip-hoppingly triumphant “Tempest”. By gluing these pieces together in a patchwork, Maria João and João Farinha create a new narrative that extends the Shakespearean universe from end to end.

Tracklisting
1. Look in Thy Glass
2. The Lunatic, The Lover and the Poet
3. Love Looks Not with the Eyes
4. Romeo
5. Willow
6. The Man That Hath No Music in Himself
7. Sigh No More, Ladies
8. The Tempest