Wall Street Journal: "Brazilian Singer Marisa Monte Sambas Back Into the Spotlight" →

“Marisa Monte doesn’t want people to get the wrong impression about the six-year hiatus she took after her last studio release. She was quite busy during that time, giving birth to her second child, raising a family, and working on a documentary as well as a live album.

‘I don’t know why, but for some people a live record doesn’t count,’ Ms. Monte said during a conversation with Speakeasy from her home in Rio de Janeiro.

The Brazilian singer and songwriter is gearing up for  the first leg of a world tour to support her latest release, ‘O Que Você Quer Saber De Verdade’  (What You Really Want to Know), a globe-trotting effort that included recording and mixing sessions in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Los Angeles and New York.

Thanks to the internet, Ms. Monte was able to stay in touch and work on arrangements with musicians around the world.

‘This would have been impossible 15 years ago, for example, lugging around tapes all over the world,’ Ms. Monte says. ‘Now I can email files and we can share ideas with musicians in different locations as the work evolves.’

Interestingly, the technology that supported her collaborative efforts around the globe allowed Ms. Monte to produce what is perhaps her most introspective album to date. ‘What Your Really Want To Know,’ Ms Monte’s ninth release, seems driven by the search of the elusive small moments of joy in our lives.

‘The record speaks to a desire to seek distance from all the noise, all the demands on our time and attention’ she says. ‘It’s an effort to find a quiet spot where I can get in touch with my heart, my intuition, and find happiness. In order to be able to communicate with others, we have to communicate with ourselves,’ Ms Monte says.

As an artist who has demonstrated fluency with music of different eras and places–she received classical lyrical training in Italy at 19, and is as comfortable interpreting Gershwin as she is working with rockers or avant-garde composers such as Phillip Glass-Ms. Monte’s latest pays homage to other artists.

There is a cover of Jorge Ben’s classic pop song ‘Descalço No Parque’ (Barefoot in the Park), as well as a new interpretation of a tango song she recorded with a traditional orchestra in Buenos Aires.

‘That tango was first recorded by a Brazilian artist in the 1940s, at a time when tango was very popular in Brazil,’ Ms. Monte says, citing it as an example of the multiple forces that shaped Brazilian music and its culture.

‘Brazilian music is so diverse and open to local and international influences. We are in a permanent dialogue with every culture,’ says Ms. Monte, who named Regina Spektor and Melody Gardot among her contemporary favorite female vocalists.

‘I like to call myself a Brazilian artist, because I belong to a culture that is open to all others. Brazil is shaped by the confluence of different cultures, that’s our greatest strength. And it’s the example Brazil can give to the rest of the world, we are a young country with lots to offer.’

Ms. Monte says she is busy rehearsing for the tour, which starts in Brazil and will take her to Europe during the fall. Ms. Monte has plans to tour the U.S. in 2013, and though she is focused on the live show, ‘there could be a couple of new songs during the tour.’”