Trans duo Fado Bicha take traditional Portuguese fado music in a new direction with their eclectic collaborations.

I discovered fado a few years back when I was hired to write some sleeve notes for a collaboration between Ennio Morricone and a singer called Dulce Pontes.

She is one of Portugal’s most highly regarded fado singers and he, of course, was the great Italian film composer. Both had egos to match their status and it was one of the toughest assignments I recall.

First of all, Morricone insisted that he would only talk in Italian (with an interpreter), and only face to face, and only at his home in Rome. And he was adamant that the term “spaghetti western” must not feature anywhere in conversation, or in the notes.

Not to be outdone, Pontes then demanded that I should talk to her in person too; when I demurred she invited my wife as well and offered first-class plane tickets to Lisbon.

To make matters worse, when I asked Morricone his views on fado, he said he knew nothing about it, had never heard it, had never heard Pontes sing, and wasn’t remotely interested – he had composed his music, he explained, and the record company had got “this woman” to sing on it.

In the end, the meagre record company budget on offer by my old pal Mark Williamson at Decca meant I managed to stay at home while endless discs of translated interviews with Morricone were flown over from Rome, and Pontes finally agreed to speak to me – in English – on the phone.

God knows what the sleeve notes turned out like; all I can remember is that Morricone wouldn’t allow any of those famous films – The Good, The Bad And Ther Ugly, etc – to be mentioned at all because he had made more than 500 other albums.

Anyway, fado.

This tune is pretty far removed from the traditional mournful music of Lisbon’s working-class Alfama neighbourhood where it first took root, but Lila Bicha began there before taking it in an experimental trans direction that probably horrifies traditionalists.

Lila Fadista and João Caçador are a musical and activist duo who perform under the name Fado Bicha, which means “queer fado” (fado being a mournful style of traditional music from Portugal, bicha being a slur against gay men).

Here they are joined by Joacine Katar Moreira, a fellow activist and politician from Guinea-Bissau, whose mellifluous tones meld marvellously with the mournful wailing of Lila and Cacador’s plangent guitar picking.

I don’t know the genesis of this collaboration, and I don’t know what Moreira is saying, because I don’t speak Portuguese, but it’s supremely soothing to listen to her voice.