Customer Reviews

Paixoes Diagonais

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Misia has created an exceptionally beautiful and moving cd in Paixoes Diagonais - even the title is great. Her singing indeed begs comparison with the great Amalia, although Misia has a slight (modern) quality of playfulness to her notes of longing that Amalia didn't. This cd is also better recorded - by that I mean more naturally - so that her voice doesn't have the harder digital edge heard on some of her other recordings. In all, a cd to treasure.

I brought this CD purely for the art work & written material that came with the CD. I had no idea what this music is about, but once I popped into the player, the first guitar notes, the piano , then that beautiful voice just overwhelmes you. I do not understand the lyrics, i.e. Portuguese, and/or what type of music she sings, but good music transcends language, culture & time. If music is what separates us from the animals, then this is it. I'm anxious to hear her other works.

This new album brings the public back to Misia's spell. Each and every song of it are pure art, such as the artist herself. For lovers of excellent music this will be a masterpiece of a collection and a must for those who love this new and unique voice of Fado.

I had a real need for a Fado Fix - and happened upon a review of this album in New Age Magazine (of all places). I ordered it immediately and it is everything they said it would be plus much, much more. This is simply sublime. What a beautiful voice! Misia is a master of expression and interpretation.

Just heard Misia in concert in New York City. She is even better live (if that's possible.) She is one of the best voices I have ever heard and I can't wait to pop in the cd again. She is definite star material.

This is one of the most beautiful and powerful cd's of fado that I've heard. Tracks 1, 3, 4, 5 and 8 are just wonderful, literally poetry put to music.

Fado, traditional Portuguese ballads of love and loss, are a melancholy counterpart to Spain's raw flamenco. Traditionally backed by a Portuguese steel string guitar, fado is the raw lament of saudade, or yearning. Although fado can trace its roots back to the 1800s, Amalia Rodrigues was considered to be *the* modern fado superstar. Numerous other Portuguese fado divas have since attempted to fill her shoes, including Dulce Pontes, Cristina Branco, Madredeus, Misia, and Mariza.

I remember seeing Paixoes Diagonais at the record store where I used to work, but my first exposure to Misia was her later Canto CD that we received as in-store play. I'd long been attracted to the fiery percussive rhythms of Spanish flamenco, but fado is flamenco's darker, quieter self-pitying sister, content to sit in a smoky corner and lament the absence of love, luck, etc. Despite its depressing nature (a friend of mine described fado as "a suicidal soundtrack"), fado is addictive. Fado houses (clubs) are all the rage in Lisbon.

On Paixoes Diagonais, Misia updates the traditional singer-and-a-guitar setting of traditional fado and mixes it with more contemporary backings, including piano, accordion and strings. The results are stellar, lifting fado into another realm, from hints of sultry tango on Liberdade Poeticas, Parisian accordion on A palavra dos lugares and Celtic-influenced strings on Ainda que. Her soulful delivery is uniformly excellent, lending a sense of melancholy urgency that is buoyed along by the Portuguese guitar. The addition of strings and piano serve to soften some of the rougher edges and add variety to a normally guitar-only program.