COMPOSERS: Manecas Costa
LABELS: Late Junction
WORKS: Paraiso Di Gumbe
PERFORMER: Manecas Costa (vocals, guitar)
CATALOGUE NO: BBCLJ 3007-2
It’s a relief to hear MANECAS COSTA singing his songs with supporting cast from Guinea-Bissau. He lives in Europe, but wanted to make the recording back home: another fancy appeal to buyers’ sentiments, you may think, until you hear the results.
The singing is soft and agile, full of personality, and despite a stark range of topical subject matter it conveys unquenched hope and vitality, backed by his own guitar playing and mainly acoustic strings and percussion.
Lyrical feeling in two successive tracks and a hoarser, more rural number put the prevailing pace in perspective. Little known in Britain, he’s catapulted into the Proms on 2 August: check him out.