Soema Montenegro: Passionaria

Coming to the end of the album, I went back to the beginning and felt surprised at how gently she’d let us in. Track one, which is dreamy and rounded and reminds you that she lists “Healing Chants” as one of her interests on her website, doesn’t give you any adequate expectation of what’s going to happen in track two, where people start hitting her with trays. By track four she has fully warmed up and decides that she is ready to startle the world by leaping from Tanya Tagaaq grunts into an operatic trill. “Vocal liberation” and “primeval singing” are two of her other interests. She is multiple. She is accompanied by tango, by folk music, by an array of ideas, shifting, protean, keeping the audience guessing. She sounds as if she has a sense of humour, which is a good thing for the rest of us, otherwise we’d be jealous. “Showoff!” “Eccentric!”