Lina_Raül Refree
Glitterbeat Records
Release date: January 17th, 2020
Formats: CD / LP + download code / DL & Streaming
Fado rewired and recast. Raül Refree – one of Europe’s most innovative producers (Rosalía, Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo) – meets Lina, a Portuguese singer renowned for her haunting interpretations of Amalia’s classic repertoire. Analog synths and hushed sonics. Making history by breaking the rules.
Shedding the skin. A fresh beginning. That’s what singer Lina and producer/multi-instrumentalist Raül Refree have given Portuguese fado on Lina_Raül Refree. They’ve sloughed off the old trappings and exacting traditions of the country’s national music and given it into a perfect fit for the 21stcentury. Gone are the chiming guitars that were the music’s instrumental trademark and in their place comes piano and analog synths. Together, they’ve reinvented the music that holds a nation’s soul, and done it while keeping the rich beauty of the melodies and the aching poetry of the words that are such a vital part of the tradition. “I wanted to do something different with fado,” Lina explains. She already had a deep background in the music; her family has sung it for two generations and she took it up when she was 15, studied opera and turned to the stage, where she portrayed fado’s great queen, Amália Rodrigues, before being invited to become a regular at Lisbon’s iconic Clube de Fado. She’d amassed an enviable pedigree. But it was time for more. And she knew exactly who to call. “I invited Raül to produce my album.”
Raül Refree has been widely praised for his solo work, like the album La Otra Mitad (tak:til / 2018), as well as his ground-breaking productions; he’d collaborated with the flamenco incendiary Rosalía on her Los Angeles album, the disc that first made her name. “Lina thought that fado needed something similar to what I did with flamenco,” he recalls. “She invited me to hear her sing at the club. The very next day we went to the studio to see if we could develop a good musical relationship. She began to sing and I played.” What they’ve achieved is to free the music from the shackles of its own, long history. Lina_Raül Refreeis fado for today, a sound that goes beyond geography. It sheds the old skin for the new yet still leaves it as Portugal’s soul, it’s great, a beautiful cry of emotion.