The latest release from the Red Hot series, designed to raise awareness and funds for AIDS, heads off to the Portuguese motherland, and the field report is entrancing. Red Hot + Lisbon, OndaSonora (Movie Play 30.375; 77:31) is an especially broad-ranging set of music, as befits this fulcrum culture which has dispersed inspiration to Brazil and points in Africa. The darker aspects of its imperialist history notwithstanding, the musical upshot has been an artistic flowering of things emanating from Portugal, and re-synthesizing with native culture, most recently via the celebrated music of Cape Verde’s Cesaria Evora.
David Byrne and Caetano Veloso kick things off with the suave, surreal Brazilian twang of “Dreamworld: Marco de Canaveres,” and Brazilians are filtered throughout, including Marisa Monte, Vinicius Cantuaria, Nana Vasconcelos, and honorary Brazilian Arto Lindsay. Highlights: Lisbon-based group Madredeus’ moodscape, “Os Dias Sao a Noite” K.d. lang’s soulful treatment of “Fado Hilario,” Smoke City’s Portu-pop nugget “O Cara Lindo” and Paulo Braganca and Antonio Chainho’s “Fado da Adica.” Instrumental interludes along the way provide atmospheric caulking, with traditional touches and patches of electronica conspiring to create its own private Lisbon.
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