Sara Tavares
BALANCÊ

EXTRAFESTA 

Sara Tavares: vocals and acoustic guitar
N'du: drums and backing vocals
Gogui: bass and backing vocals
Boy Ge Mendes: guitar and backing vocals
Màrio Simão: acoustics
Ani Fonseca: production manager 

in collaboration with COCIS. Sviluppo, Pace, Diritti. Per Tutti. "Cooperazione? Si, grazie" (www.cocis.it)

At just 16 years old, Sara Tavares had already won two of the most prestigious Portuguese competitions for singers. She was born twenty-seven years ago in Portugal to Cape-verdian parents. She grew up around music, picking up various styles including Gospel, Funk and Soul. This early artistic experience has allowed her to easily incorporate influences arriving from African culture, making possible the creation of her distinctive personal style. Her second album Mi Ma Bô, produced by Lokua Kanza, was a resounding success in Portugal and opened the doors of the international music scene to her. 
After a five year wait, we are now finally able to appreciate Sara's stylistic evolution in a completely self-produced album (for which she also wrote all the tracks).  Balancê, shows Tavares on fine form, playing almost all the featured instruments herself and creating an extremely individual marriage of cultures. The arrangements are considered down to the last detail, her voice is crystal clear and the sound shows an intense tonal research. The essence though, comes from the rhythms that have marked her artistic growth: Funk and Soul. It is almost impossible to immagine how the impression of these incessant rhythms is marginal but at the same time definite; a work of rhthymic fusion that is perhaps purely intuitive, but nonetheless indicative of an uncontestable artistic talent for it.
The title of the album Balancê, has multiple meanings. In Portugal Balancê describes a sweet music, a music that 'cradles'. Portuguese-speaking Africans use the term more generally: "When you eat something very good, you say, this food is balancê!"  explains Sara. 
For me the song Balancê also describes how people oscillate between sadness and joy, day and night, sweet and salty. You always walk on a subtle boundary and you have to maintain the equilibrium between contrasting emotions. You have to play with those boundaries to stay on your feet.  If you are too rigid, in the end you'll fall.

www.saratavares.com