ANA MOURA

Ana Moura | Casa Guilhermina The journey to Ana Moura's seventh studio album, Casa Guilhermina, began with a pause. Having released six records in 12 years and toured extensively, the fadista had begun working on a new project, "but I realised that I didn't have anything to say to people," she says. "I went to the studio and I felt empty." Such burnout is understandable. Since the release of her debut album, 2003's Guarda-me A Vida Na Mão, Ana has become one of Portugal's biggest stars, selling over 1 million records around the world. Her fifth album, 2012's Desfado, which was produced by Grammy Award-winning Joni Mitchell collaborator, Larry Klein, became the best-selling record of the 2010s by a local act, while her follow-up, 2015's Moura, became the 4th best-selling album of all time in Portugal. Along the way, she has picked up fans in The Rolling Stones, with whom she has performed with, and was a close friend with Prince, visiting the singer at the iconic Paisley Park numerous times before his untimely passing (Prince even wrote a song "Dream of Fire", which appeared on Moura). Along with such success came years of touring. It was a whirlwind that Ana says was crazy. "I was so busy that I just couldn't stop. I always have difficulties saying no to work stuff, so I went into the studio," she recalls. "I had some songs but they weren't written by me. They were written by other musicians that I really love, but I didn't feel like they were about what it was that I wanted to say with my music." In the end, Ana put her foot down and everything stopped. At home in Portugal, she embarked on a journey of creative discovery that took her to the clubs and parties in Lisbon where she was introduced to younger musicians and producers, many who were merging the rhythms of Angola and Cape Verde with Portuguese soul. It was a sound the resonated with Ana. "My mum is Angolan and my father is Portuguese," she says, "so this was my story, too. I grew up listening to Angolan music and I always felt very close to Angolan music, but I had never explored it myself." She also discovered other soundscapes and sonorities during this time, as well as reconnected with other musicians from her past. When it was announced that Portugal would be going into lockdown because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Ana invited two of the new producers that she had met during her journey of exploration, Pedro Mafama and Pedro Da Linha, to stay with her and see what magic they could cook up together. Before this, however, Ana had also set sail on another creative journey she had yet to explore in her career: writing her own music. "During the period that I stopped working for a bit, I lost my best friend, who was also my cousin," she says. "I wrote a song to her. That's how everything started." As a fadista, Ana felt that she could never write her own music. "In Portugal, and specifically in fado, we have these great poets. It's such a big responsibility to write something. But I was writing this song for her and I wanted to share that with people." That song is "Mázia", a beautiful ode to her cousin, as well as Ana's own Angolan heritage, which recalls childhood memories of Ana and her cousin dancing to the Angolan music that their grandparents used to play to them growing up. "At first, I started to write the lyrics and then I started to imagine the melody and the rhythm of the song," Ana says. "I had been asleep, but I woke up and recorded it on my phone. It really was a dream. I really wanted to record it, so I went to the studio - this was before the producers 3 came to stay with me - and I invited a very classic musician from Angolan music. I told him what I wanted for the song and I added a lot of instruments that are traditional in Semba, which comes from Angola. Then when the producers got involved, they brought the more electronic sounds and made those instruments sound different." Such a blending of sonic touch points and cultural references is indicative of Casa Guilhermina, an album that not only sees Ana writing her own material for the first time but also acts as an invitation to listeners to step into her world and soak up the music that has helped her become an artist. Blending modern pop production with the fado tradition and African genres including Semba, Morna & Kizomba, alongside Brazilian Samba and Chora, it's a record unlike anything Ana has created before and finds her at the height of her artistic prowess. "To be in lockdown at my house, with no outside influences, I was really focused on the album," she says. "I really wanted to discover something new. I was fearless." This attitude is evident all over the record: from the slight brushes of auto-tune on "Calunga" to the watery electronic R&B and Kizomba of "Agarra Em Mim", which features guest vocals from Pedro Mafama, who not only worked as a producer with Ana on the record but has since become her partner and the father of their baby daughter. Another song, 'Jacarandá', which once again sees Ana playing with auto- tune and R&B textures and kizomba beats, was written in honour of Prince. "He loved my music but he was always saying, 'One day I will listen to your music with a beat,'" Ana says. "I think he would have loved to listen to this rhythm. The lyrics are an homage to what we shared together, and everything that I learned when I spent time with him and that he left in me as a musician and individual." She also invited Prince's guitarist, Mike Scott, to play guitar on the track. "I wanted to have a Prince flavour in some way. And Mike Scott plays guitar with the same aesthetic as Prince. It sounds like it could be Prince on the song." 4 Lyrically, the record is filled with allusions to isolation, loneliness and love. "I've always felt very lonely," Ana explains. "My life became very solitary. You might have groups of friends but when you're on the road you're never here to meet up with them. Even with your families. It's a different life. People get used to the idea that you're never here. That means that even if you are there, they assume that you're not and don't invite you. I feel this a lot. I can be at a show and I can be surrounded by people, even after the show where I'm taking photos, and then I go to my hotel room alone. Loneliness was very present in my life over the last few years. That's why I write a lot about that now." Take the haunting 'Arraial Triste', which features these spine-chilling yet beautiful background vocals and makes reference to rustic Portuguese national festivals that celebrate saints' days. "Since I was young, I used to go to these festivals every year," Ana says. "The song is a description of desencontro, which is when people are unable to meet despite wanting to. It's sad, but it's also empowering. I'm saying that I'm on the streets walking at night in the middle of the festival, but still feeling alone. I cannot find him because he's somewhere else in the festival. But at the same time, I say, 'Tonight, I will dance with myself under the full moon.'" Of course, an Ana Moura album wouldn't be complete without beautiful renditions of classic fados, as well as traditional Angolan music. Towards the end of the record is a stunning rendition of Amália Rodrigues' "Estranha Forma De Vida". "It contains some of the most incredible lyrics in fado," Ana says. "It's probably the one that I also relate to most, too. Being a fado singer is a very specific kind of lifestyle. You have to put yourself in a position where you're able to feel all these big emotions. It can be exhausting. Fado is not something you just sing for fun. It's not light. You travel to a place where you are transformed, which can be heavy. But being a fadista is that and I think that the lyrics to that song are the best lyrics ever written about living that way." Weaving together the threads of her life for this record led Ana to the album's title, the name of her house, Casa Guilhermina, which is named after her grandmother. "This album, for the first time, is an invitation for people to 5 listen to all the influences that I've had in my life and my house," she says. "This album has all these different aspects that are part of my life. I thought that it was the best name to describe that because my grandmother gave me that heritage. She was Angolan but her father was Portuguese. She sang fado, she danced to Angolan music and she made me the woman that I am today." Ana says making Casa Guilhermina was a liberating experience, one that has brought her closer to her Angolan heritage. "I was going through some hard times and I really needed something that could give me strength and happiness. The rhythms from Angola brought that to me and made me want to dance," she says. "They made me smile." It also taught her something about her own strength, too. "With this album, it was very important for me to realise that many things that I thought that I couldn't do were actually possible," she says. "It was making this album that made me feel like I was able to make my own choices and not be afraid about it. Fear comes from what we think that we are not able to do. If we really want to accomplish something, we can work on it. I believe in that."