Short World Music Stories: Cesária Évora, Cesária Évora &.

On a damp, dank and despondent Wednesday in the periphery of London, the soulful croon of the "barefoot diva" Cesária Évora sounds altogether otherworldly, inconceivable that her Cape Verdean Creole originated just half the world away. A highly collaborative long player that despite its extensive length never slips into morna monotony, Cesária Évora & features anything and everything from the irrevocably French voix of Bernard Lavilliers to the weather-beaten falsetto of Salif Keita, with Évora's timeless vocals flowing resplendently throughout like glistening water snaking its way through El Dorado. Another staple of the record is the sublime guitar that glides effervescently atop omnipresent duet, at times reminiscent of Andean rhythm, at others akin to tarantella-inspired Tarantino soundtrack.

Plucking bits and bobs of brilliance from every corner of our globe, the sixty-nine-year-old Évora's latest is as refreshing as a beachside bottle of Strela; the bafflingly chirpy Lagrimas Negras comes across as Cuban as clouds of cigar smoke swirling around cane sugar lodged in rear molars, whilst Africa Nossa is distinctly west African in sonic aesthetic, and features the instantaneously distinguishable warble of Ismaël Lô. For Cesária Évora often conjures the impression that she's toyed around with a child's luminous globe, jovially whirling it round on its axis before pointing to her next sound, whilst effortlessly retaining every ounce of its integrity. Yamore, featuring the aforementioned Malian, Keita, ebbs over glorious melancholy and melodramatic pop undertones, whilst Quel Casinha (Il Ragazzo Della Via Gluck) is as inherently indebted to the Festival della Canzone Italiana di Sanremo as it is to distant isles ensnared by the perpetual lapping of azure waves. A figurative encyclopaedia of world music calling at marble ballroom piano balladry (Negue), sparse South American twang (Embarcacao) and musical-meets-Morricone (Ausencia), age is seemingly irrelevant to Évora as she continues to outshine and outsing her collaborators.