Sabrina Malheiros

As impressive as world music label Far Out's growing collection of international Brazilian releases may be, what's equally (although likely unintentionally) impressive is the slightly unsettling uniformity in the sound of that output. It breeds predictability that continues on this recomposed edition of "nu-bossa" singer Sabrina Malheiros' '08 offering, New Morning, a quant collection of breezy-to-bustling samba jazz featuring reworked, unreleased and instrumental versions of cuts from the original LP. Despite Malheiros's top billing, the true stars of this record are the musicians, who manage to fill every nook and cranny of organic cuts like "Vou Voar" and the bristling Nicola Conte retuning of "New Morning" with heartening amounts of lush, acoustic delightfulness. For her part, Malheiros (daughter of Azymuth member Alex Malheiros) embodies the type of stock Brazilian voice we've come to expect over the sound bed captured here, and rarely displays the necessary personality or palpable ability to venture beyond that.