Balance

By Sara Tavares
Times Square Records www.timessquarerecords.net

Sounding at times like a Euro/African version of Ricky Lee Jones, Sarah Tavares captures our ears and imagination with her title song ‘Balance’ – then switches styles as easily as she switches and combines languages: a mixture of Portuguese, English and French.

Sara is from Lisbon, Portugal but is of Cape Verdean descent. She’s traveled and studied all over the world and her music reflects this. She mixes in more African influences (particularly Angola, another Portuguese colony) than most Cape Verdean singers or songwriters.

Although like most of her contemporaries Brazilian music easily filters into her compositions, Sara Tavares lets it influence her own work rather than just singing Brazilian standards. She’s come to terms with the fact that she’s both African and European and has embraced them both as well as sounds from North and South America, the Caribbean, and beyond.

Sara Tavares just might be the greatest find yet of the Cape Verde/Portugal axis: BALANCE is a truly excellent debut.