Genre
Contemporary folk and chamber music, with fado influences. The album weaves acoustic guitar, cello, accordion, and keyboards into a sound that is at once rooted in the melancholy of the Portuguese musical tradition and entirely contemporary, unified by Teresa Salgueiro's luminous, crystalline voice.
Release
Released on June 23, 1994, by EMI-Valentim de Carvalho.
Production
Produced by Pedro Ayres Magalhães, with António Cunha as executive producer. Recording and mixing were handled by António Pinheiro da Silva and Jonathan Miller. The album was recorded and mixed between March 27 and May 5, 1994, at Great Linford Manor and Lansdowne Recording Studios, England; editing and mastering were completed at CTS Studios, London.
Reception
O Espírito da Paz was among the first of Madredeus's albums to reach significant international audiences. Released in the same year that Wim Wenders invited the band to contribute to his film Lisbon Story — an association that would prove decisive for their global profile — it arrived as the group was on the cusp of international breakthrough.
Madredeus
Madredeus are a Portuguese musical ensemble formed in Lisbon in 1985 by guitarist and producer Pedro Ayres Magalhães and keyboardist Rodrigo Leão, both veterans of the Portuguese new wave scene. Cellist Francisco Ribeiro and accordionist Gabriel Gomes joined in 1986; the group's defining voice, Teresa Salgueiro (born January 8, 1969, Lisbon), was discovered singing in a Lisbon bar and joined the same year. Their debut album, Os Dias da Madredeus (1987), was recorded barefoot in a disused Lisbon abbey to minimise noise from passing trams, and gave the group its name. The collaboration with Wim Wenders on Lisbon Story (1994–1995) transformed them into Portugal's most internationally successful musical export after Amália Rodrigues. Between 1987 and 2007, the group sold over five million records worldwide. The New York Times compared their aesthetic to Enya, the Cocteau Twins, and Kate Bush. Salgueiro left the group in 2007 to pursue a solo career.
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