ArchiveXYZ: Lisbon

MONSANTO FEST 2017, 7/5/2017

AMOR ELECTRO WITH SIMONE DE OLIVEIRA

This year there’s no Monsanto Fest (a music festival with free entrance, in Benfica, Lisbon, Portugal), but last year there was, between 5 and 7 of May. I saw two concerts and photographed one, the last of the festival ─ Amor Electro with the participation of Simone de Oliveira. The band went through a great part of their most well known repertoire maintaining the quality we are used to hear. Simone de Oliveira was truly remarkable, both when she sang solo and when she sang in duet with Marisa (the voice of Amor Electro). Once again both proved very well that singing and emotions have no age or style.

“Soul music” is an expression long associated with black music and for very good reasons, because that’s the true origin of soul music. In soul music the interpretation becomes as important as the melody and harmony themselves. And the words deeply uttered don’t lose part of their meaning in the middle of the sound. Well, I find exactly the same kind of feeling in some Portuguese music that mixes tradition and new tendencies, but mainly preserving the importance of a perfect mingling between words and music. It’s from that combination that deep emotions arise and stay inscribed in the soul ears. Even if the rhythm was different and the instruments were absent, the soul chord would remain. The rhythm and the musical enfold just add more body and a spectacular dimension to the whole and in a live show that counts.

Neither Amor Electro nor Simone de Oliveira play / sing soul music but the result is similar. Along the last decade, Amor Electro have been mixing tradition and what we may call “electro-pop” in a new way, presenting, for example, some unexpected and interesting versions of Amalia’s fados.

Only a few know the pictures below, now they are public. They are just a glimpse to one more moment in time.
AMOR ELECTRO official site - http://www.amorelectro.com/
AMOR ELECTRO Youtube official channel - https://www.youtube.com/user/AmorElectroOfficial

Amor Electro & Simone de Oliveira - Monsanto Fest 2017, photography by São Ludovino.

The golden hour... When the sun offers his treasures to the Earth and to our eyes. There must be a reason that explains this but the fact is that only the beaches of the North of Lisbon offer this incredible golden light. At the beaches of Costa da Caparica (South of Lisbon) the light in the waters, even at sunset, is mostly silver and at Arrábida or Tróia it is something between the silver and the blue.

The Golden Hour, photography by São Ludovino.

Golden Waters, photography by São Ludovino.

The Hour of the Dreamers, photography by São Ludovino.

Golden drops, photography by São Ludovino.

FALLING TOGETHER

Bird
Shine, shine forever, my sun
And if you fall one day
Fall in my eyes
And I’ll be the light with you in me.

Sun
Fly, fly freely, my fire bird
And if you fall one day
I’ll fall with you
I will live in your wounded wings
Until a new sky opens the door to a new dawn.

Bird & Sun
Doesn’t matter what may come
Let me fall in your eyes
Let me live in your wings
We were born to fall free
Free we fall together
Take my light
Take my eyes
Take my wings
Shine
Fly
Together
Let’s fall while we can fall
Eyes and wings and light
Free fall souls in love with life
Our glorious dawn begins in togetherness
Our unity is beyond the circle of days…

Suy / São Ludovino, 30/5/2013, 1:33 A.M.