Well I'm still suspicious about subsidised promotions of a country's culture as I said recently, but the Portuguese do seem to have stuck to their guns fairly tenaciously, as they've been doing these Exploratory Music promotions for at least five years now. And they're not just limited to promotional CDs like this one (given away with The Wire) — last November there was a month-long festival of performances in London as well.
This is the first time I've listened to this CD. It starts with a couple of songs that develop from the Fado tradition, and I quite like them (I saw Portugal's most famous contemporary exponent of Fado, Mariza, at the Barbican 14 months ago, and I found her quite annoying). But by the time you get to Track 4, there's a Portuguese copy of The Fall, sung/spoken in English, which is just silly, and then it wanders all over the musical map from there, taking in contemporary electro-acoustic composition and, towards the end, genuinely 'exploratory' soundscapes.
It's all very well, but I doubt even someone of the broad and eccentric range of Tony Stratton-Smith (see yesterday) could like all of it. To discover music this way, you would really have to shortlist acceptable tracks on the first one or two listens, and then refine your selections from there. I think my favourite so far (after one and a half listens) is the Electrelane-ish post-rock of Fat Freddy's track Theme 10 from the Untitled Album.
I wonder how they evaluate their investments in these cultural showcases. Because, over five or more years, they must have spent enough to warrant an evaluation.
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