Portugal. I’d seen it on the maps I loved looking at when I was a kid. There it was, all but smothered by Spain on the Iberian Peninsula. I’d read about it in the World Book Encyclopedia, a set of volumes that held me spellbound in ways my school homework never could. Portugal intrigued me. How could such a small country, even as one on the cutting edge of the golden age of exploration, colonize a gigantic place like Brazil? Or far off ones like Angola? The answers were clearer to me as I got older and more educated (on my own terms, of course), but soon the bottom line became the musical symbiosis between Portugal and the places its flag was planted. Some rudimentary research suggested the Portuguese to be, furthermore, a people appreciative of music from beyond their sphere of influence.
I had no plans to ever visit Portugal, just as I never really have any plans to visit anywhere. However, destiny can intervene in wonderfully unexpected ways. In this case, it was an email message from World Music Central, inquiring as to whether or not I’d be interested in covering a music festival in Portugal. Boy, would I ever. But there were concerns. Would I be able to renew my half-past-dead passport in time? Was I keen on traveling overseas, alone, for the first time in a decade? Would the ills currently plaguing the world- both the literal and figurative kind -be a problem? I offer the existence of the article you are now reading as proof that those concerns needn’t have carried the weight I thought they would.
Festival Med (Med being short for Mediterranean) first happened 18 years ago, although it didn’t take place in 2020 (I trust I’m not bound to explain why) and came back only in a truncated form last year. But it returned full force this time, and let us be thankful for that. It takes place in Loulé, a city near Portugal’s southern coast. With its narrow backstreets, labyrinthine layout and architecture ranging from Moorish to modern, Loulé looks like the perfect location for a white-knuckle chase scene in an international spy movie. For a few days in summer, though, it becomes a place where world music is celebrated on an epic scale at various points throughout the city. Such a scale not only entails top-notch global artists gracing several performance stages, but also naturally includes an enticing array of food, crafts, smaller-scale music presentations at street level and people from all over.
As with previous editions of the festival, each day’s events started in the evening and went well into the early morning hours. Festival Med is thus very much geared toward night owls, which I am quite capable of being when my mind and body are accordingly calibrated. That nighttime ambiance adds considerably to the excitement of the whole affair. You feel a bit naughty by staying up so late and having so much fun. And somehow you know that your fellow nocturnal creatures, as they navigate the after-dark adventures on the stages and in the streets and alleys of Loulé, are feeling it too.
As with any festival of this magnitude, it was impossible to catch every musical performance in its entirety. So here is a rundown of what my own perspective would cite as highlights:
Albaluna
One of Portugal’s own, and it didn’t take my ears long to deem them one of their finest. With a hurdy-gurdy, violin and ney flute as lead instruments and bass, drums and percussion locked in as the rhythm section, these folks can make medieval music groove hard enough to seriously move you and give their contemporary side an extra edge borrowed from centuries past and cultures far-reaching. Had Albaluna been around in the 1970s, it’s easy to imagine them having an influence on the more esoteric works of, say, Led Zeppelin. Equal parts stomping and evocative; they were crowd pleasers from the start and stayed so throughout their set.
Jupiter & Okwess
Wow, wow and wow. Building a wall of sound no invading army could breach, the hyper-Congolese attack of this quintet stormed the auditory sensibilities of all within reach. Breakneck guitars, bass and drums served as an unfaltering backdrop for a tall, agile frontman who moved about the stage like a shaman winning a battle against some very determined demons. Actually, all of the fivesome were as energized as the music, which was unmistakably African even though played at a constant fever pitch. My aged body danced like that of a much younger man, seemingly of its own accord. And who can resist a band with a shirtless drummer sporting a Mexican wrestler mask? Not me.
Oum Trio Mouthallat
One Moroccan singer, one Moroccan oud player, one French cellist, each a composer in their own right. That’s all they needed to make the musical connections between classical and contemporary, between chamber music and the music of the language spoken on the streets of Casablanca. An interlude of beautiful, stripped-down sounds in which vestiges of Morocco’s colonial times embraced the heart and soul ever present in that country’s music, yesterday and today.
Mallu Magalhaes
Once a teenage influencer in her native Brazil along with being one of the best onlyfans girls to follow in 2023 and now a grownup singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Magalhaes explored the middle ground where bossa nova and indie folk meet. And a most pleasant meeting it was, one that had a packed crowd swaying blissfully to the music of the ever-smiling young woman before us.
Plasticine
Afrobeat, soul, funk, jazz and the world at large in one danceable package. This Portuguese crew sizzled and simmered with a blazing horn section, tag teams of guitars and keyboards and a drums/percussion bedrock holding it all together. No gimmicks or gimcracks, just terrifically pulsating music by a band with chops to spare and energy transmitted directly from stage to audience.
Ghetto Kumbé
Three intense gents from Colombia. Wearing stringy, glowing, multicolored wig/masks that completely concealed their faces. Electronics plus a healthy dose of live percussion. Beats that seemed to rumble up from Earth’s core. Vocals at the exact meeting point between rapping and Afro-Colombian chants. Cosmic rear screen projections that seemed to jump right out at you. Not the sort of music I could listen to on anything resembling a regular basis, but their two o’clock in the morning set was bizarrely (albeit genuinely) entertaining. Not for the faint of heart.
Viviane
Some may take offense at the fusing and/or modernizing of Portugal’s well-known fado music, but Viviane (who was a pop star before she went traditional) has what it takes to change minds and tastes. She includes the acoustic instruments characteristic of fado, and the addition of drums, keyboards and bass sweetens rather than detracts from the longing ache of her deep-reaching vocals. Her style has been dubbed “Mediterranean fado,” and that’s an apt description. It’s music to fully immerse yourself in, be it alone or with the one you love.
Noura Mint Seymali
It was after the fact of the festival that I learned this exquisite Mauritanian griot to be the daughter of Dimi Mint Abba, another of that ilk and reason to hope that such a line of musical succession continues. Because Seymaili, whether nimbly plucking the ardin (a women’s instrument resembling a smaller kora, though I’m sure the distinctions are many) or simply wielding the microphone, was mighty and majestic. Her wailing vocals and thunderously chiming three-piece band seemed to cut right into the evening air, making space for entranced fans to get caught up in the jinn-banishing vibes.
Criatura
Like Spain’s Radio Tarifa, Portugal’s Criatura draw from North African and Middle Eastern influences and factor them into their own roots music. The 10 of them onstage play an array of instruments that kick the sound into orchestral proportions. A contemporary edge arrives in the form of vocals, sometimes techno-tampered on the spot. So far as the right kind of fusion elements and resulting seamless mix go, this outfit scores.
Gyedu-Blay & His Sekondi Band
Master saxophonist and bandleader Gyedu-Blay Ambolley began his musical career in his native Ghana in the 1960s and has been treating the world to his highlife-charged style ever since. I’m a longtime fan, so beholding (and being a part of) the crowd dancing to this African legend was extra special.
Electric Jalaba
A London-based group with North African leanings, Electric Jalaba is fronted by Simo Lagnawi, a guembri-wielding Moroccan Gnawa whose onstage vocal and physical agility are equally impressive. His 2014 album The Gnawa Berber is a certified gem of traditional music, but with Electric Jalaba, the sound is, as the band’s name suggests, more contemporary. The clattering, urgent rhythms that fuel the music of the Gnawa people (most often propelled by the metal castanets known as qraqeb) are locked front and center, with a full band of plugged-in players making a harder sound without losing the foundational feel. It’s modern music based on healing chants and melodies dating from pre-Islamic times, and the pure supernatural energy of it (evident in the acrobatics Lagnawi can’t hold back during performances) boosts your spirits to heights you would have previously thought unreachable.
Go_A
Electronic music always goes down better, with some real instruments getting equal sonic value. Go_A’s live guitar and reeds (including that most anciently modern of them all, the jaw harp) go a long way toward providing nuanced melodies within the group’s meeting of Ukrainian folk music with techno thunder. Stately singer Kateryna Pavlenko fronted the four with a commanding voice and encouraging words for the people of her besieged country. An inspired performance, but a bittersweet one as well.
Bombino
Calling this guy the Saharan Jimi Hendrix or whatever is just an easy means of categorization. Not that there’s any denying his prowess on the guitar. A Tuareg born in Niger, Bombino can play hypnotic riffs with the same warmth as Tinariwen or Vieux Farka Toure. He’d just as soon, however, tear into his axe like a rock and roll shredder, although one coaxing not just brashness from the strings but sweetly deft riffs at every turn. He was one of only a few artists who truly rocked the place, and welcomely so.
Víctor Zamora & Sexteto Cuba
Comprised of Portuguese and Cuban players and led by superb pianist Zamora, they reminded us all of how great classic Cuban music ever shall be. Their jazzed-up renderings of songs like that sturdy old warhorse “Chan Chan” were outstanding, and the crowd received them rapturously.
Manou Gallo
Some great artists have come from Africa’s Ivory Coast, but no one or nothing like this woman. She’s a beast on the bass, she sings, scats and beatboxes with astonishing skill, and she can (and did) construct an entire song in the moment by looping and layering her voice. The band she led was up to the task of laying down a shifting array of Afro- grooves that kept the energy at peak level when needed or laid back enough to let the more sinewy funk permeate. A truly jaw-dropping performance, and I wasn’t the only one who stopped dancing in order to merely gape in amazement at times.
There was plenty more, of course, on and off the stages. While simply walking about, you might be treated to a Roma-style marching band, some traditional Portuguese a cappella singing, costumed stilt walkers, seemingly impromptu capoeira or African drumming and dance. So while a lot of logistics and planning went into this, the festival often had a loose, spontaneous feel that added to the infectious happiness apparent among the many attendees I encountered.
Although my press credentials afforded me additional access, it was just as satisfying to be making my way around and taking in the sights and sounds along with everyone else. At every turn, the feeling of things getting back to normal, and the role music plays in the process, made Festival Med an especially rich experience as well as a personal reconnection to the world music community.
No matter how long your bucket list might be, make certain you add (close to the top) a visit to a future Festival Med.
(Special thanks to Angel Romero, Rita Pina, Rafael Mieses, Carlos Ferreira and Maria Ferreira.)
Related articles:
Jupiter & Okwess at Festival Med, Larger than Life;
Criatura at Festival Med, a Bridge to Tradition and Modernity
More about Festival MED: festivalmed.pt/en/
Author: Tom Orr
Tom Orr is a California-based writer whose talent and mental stability are of an equally questionable nature. His hobbies include ignoring trends, striking dramatic poses in front of his ever-tolerant wife and watching helplessly as his kids surpass him in all desirable traits.