The album Can You See Me by Portuguese musician Maro, a graduate of the prestigious American music school Berklee, caught our eye in 2022. It was one of my musical favourites of that year. A clever blend of electronic and acoustic, sung largely in English, but with an irresistible accent.
Maro has many strings to her bow, and with each album, we witness a renewal. In 2023, she released Hortela, a meditative, entirely acoustic album sung largely in Portuguese. Now, here is Lifeline, a predominantly electronic album, produced jointly with Nasaya, a Frenchman originally from Reunion Island and also a Berklee graduate in Boston.
Despite the multiple electronic effects, we hear acoustic guitars and beautiful vocal harmonies between the two artists. It’s an enveloping and soothing electronic sound that exudes the tropics and southern landscapes. It reminds me of the venerable musician Wally Badarou, a veteran keyboardist, a Frenchman originally from Benin, who knew how to give synthesizers soul like no other.
And there’s Maro’s voice, which envelops, challenges, soothes, provokes, and soothes, overwhelmingly in English, but with bits of Portuguese. Personally, I’d be in favour of more Portuguese. I’ve often said it: it’s rare for a non-English-speaking artist to truly benefit from adopting the “universal language,” but the temptation of English is so strong.
Lifeline is thirty-two minutes of beautiful music, which evokes a feeling of well-being in a part of my lower abdomen I can’t quite place. Music that soothes in these troubled and complicated times. If you read my most recent reviews, you’ll see that I’m favouring this music right now because we need it.
