Name: Lina_
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Nationality: German born, Portugal-based
Recent Release: Lina_'s new album Fado Camões is out via Galileo.

If you enjoyed this Lina_ interview and would like to stay up to date with her music and current live dates, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram.  



Can you please tell us a bit about your own sense of identity – and how it motivated you to take an artistic path?

I was born in Germany but grew up in northern Portugal. I've always had a very particular taste for music since childhood. We listened to a lot of Portuguese music at home, and my father used to sing and teach me songs. I took piano lessons and even had a keyboard that I still have today; now it's my son who plays it.

Later on, I joined a choir, and during my adolescence, the Porto Conservatory of Music was the place where I spent 5 years learning vocal technique and operatic singing. However, the musical style I identified with the most was fado.

How did you discover the fado? What defines it for you?

Fado is a traditional music of our country, and it gained worldwide recognition through Amália Rodrigues, our fado diva. My father used to sing many of Amália's most well-known songs, and I would learn them from him.



A more profound discovery came with Amália's passing in 1999, at which time her records were heard everywhere. I wanted to learn her fados, and many of them deeply moved me. I have always been fond of poetry, and poetry in Portugal is very rich. Fado thrives on poetry.

What can you personally express through this music?  

Emotion. It's all about emotions.

The fado is often concerned with darker themes, with 'matters of the soul' as it were. What draws you to these topics, would you say? How does performing the fado help you communicate your own sense of identity?

The fado often explores deeper themes, such as the expression of profound emotions. It also describes streets, neighborhoods, and the lives of those who reside there, as well as the sea and the emotions it evokes.

All these themes are written in the form of poetry, an art distinguished by the composition in verse and the rhythmic organization of words. Therefore, there is a romanticism in the poets' writing style that, when connected to fado, evokes deep emotions in me.

The musicality, the rhymes, and the themes are characteristics that are very present and extremely important for those who sing. When I sing, I always choose poems with which I identify or that simply tell stories of other people.

It doesn't have to be dark; there are fados about love that are very passionate and with happy stories.



Has the fado offered you concrete solace in the face of death or difficult phases in your life? What made it so helpful in that situation?

Interestingly, the first fado I sang was dedicated to my grandfather, who passed away when I was 10 years old. I identified with that poem, and it was the first one I sang to an audience. Today, when I sing it, I remember him, but I also recall people who simply left my life or my country.

This music has the particularity of renewing itself and being interpreted according to each person's experiences. It is something therapeutic.

Luís de Camões is at the heart of the lyrical content of the new songs. Tell me what he means to you personally, please, and what makes him such an important poet to his day.

Luís de Camões is the ultimate representative of our linguistic origins who innovated the poetic structure and themes of his time. Modernist-Renaissance, his poetry is perfectly current. I was moved by his verses, which structurally could be sung in traditional fado.

The idea that Camões' verses can be sung in traditional fado makes sense, as fado is a Portuguese musical genre deeply rooted in emotional expression and lyrical poetry. Camões' poetic sensitivity, especially in his lyrical works, can resonate uniquely in the context of fado.

It is inspiring to see how the work of Luís de Camões continues to move people and transcend the boundaries of time, connecting with different generations through its poetic expressiveness.

Your two previous albums were big in Portugal and so is the work of someone like Ana Moura. This is unimaginable in Germany, where local music styles are very much a niche. What role does the fado still play for the people and musicians in Portugal, would you say?

Fortunately, fado is increasingly present, especially among the new generations who understand its language and its importance as an identity of a country.

It is also a kind of cult where new sounds come together, showing that fado is very much alive.

[Read our Ana Moura interview about the fado]

What role does the Portugese language play for the lyrics – what would get lost in translation, do you feel?

The poetry in verse is written with rhymes, so the translation loses that musicality in the words.

However, people may not understand, but they feel the emotions. And that is exciting!

One of the things that made the new album feel so intense to me is the use of a very reduced, but carefully curated instrumentation. What kind of sound were you looking for would you say?

Fado is modest when it comes to instruments. The Portuguese guitar is the instrument that identifies it. Despite being a fairly comprehensive instrument, it is used to respond to the voice. It's a kind of call and response.

Justin Adams and John Baggott understood this simplicity and sensitivity very well, as interpreted by Pedro Viana. The idea of space between the voice and the words was important for my way of singing and feeling.

For me, atmospheres and textures are more important than the instruments used. The rhythms brought to this album the power to imagine scenarios and constant movements of oriental and African sounds. All these influences are very present in fado.

Fado Camões is a decidedly modern production and you're working with a producer who's had his hands in very different styles of music, Yet, it doesn't cater to any trends nor does it incorporate electronics or more contemporary dance styles. Is there a line you would draw where this music is no longer "true fado"? How concerned are you with questions of purity and staying true to the essence of a particular style?

I think it's important that purists exist to remind us of how previous generations were. But how were the generations before theirs?

I don't believe there is a musical style that is one hundred percent pure. Music is shaped or affected by a variety of elements or sources. These influences could include cultural, historical, social, or personal factors that contribute to the creation and development of musical styles, genres, and compositions.

There are revolutionaries in all areas, and the existence of revolutionaries doesn't mean we'll forget our origins, our foundations. It's important that we know the foundations to innovate or create around what already exists. If not, we would be unchanging and quite uninspiring.

Ever since the beginning of your career, you've explored the fado in all of its facets. What is it that you're discovering about the fado and yourself in the process?  

I am interested in getting to know and explore more, but I always try to follow my own path and what makes sense for my career.

I am guided by what evokes my feelings, and there always has to be a common thread, a context, a theme, a sound. Not just a set of songs without apparent reasons. To sing freely without dogmas.