The music of Sara Tavares is full of ‘sunshine soul’ and “Xinti” (“Feel It”), her new album, is suffused with it. Brimming with Cape Verdean guitar licks, Angolese rhythms and warm Portuguese vocals, Sara never sounded more intense. This is a startling collection, packed with surprises that display how progressively richer and more expansive Sara Tavares’s vocal repertoire has become since her previous album “Balancê”. Her songs are lyrical, sensual and more textured. They are intimate but also wrapped in irresistibly funky rhythms drawn from the Cape Verdean / African diaspora. Themes of love – spiritual and human – embrace philosophical reflections that describe, says Tavares, “the soul taking flight.”
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