World Teofilo Chantre Azulando Bonga Kaxexe Lusafrica/Harmonia Mundi, pounds 13.99 each There's an elegant melancholy, a distinctive percussive sensuality to the music of the Portuguese-speaking world. Yet it has often seemed something of a poor relation on the world music scene. Now, with an inundation of new artists from Brazil and the irresistible rise of Cape Verde's Cesaria Evora and Portugal's Mariza, the boot has swung almost too much the other way. How much exquisitely-honed chagrin and lilting wistfulness can the market stand? Singer and guitarist Teofilo Chantre comes from Evora's mournful Cape Verde tradition, his music's rippling backdrop of guitars, piano and throbbing double bass dripping with nostalgia and shoulder-shrugging regret. While you might think Evora had already exhausted this mood, Chantre's light and rather fragile voice gives it fresh appeal - a feeling confirmed by a delightful duet with Evora herself.

Hoarse-voiced Angolan Bonga also makes a cameo appearance, and while his own music is sparser and more overtly African in feel, there's a yearning in its tone, a lyricality in the florid counterpointing guitar lines, that could only stem from the same cultural root. But Bonga is a highly distinctive talent in his own right - one I've no doubt we'll hear much more of.