Água & Vinho

It can be hard to untangle Egberto Gismonti’s beautiful early albums from both some of the later, less engaging work he did, and his status as a master of musical technique. But I tend to find Gismonti’s music most arresting and moving when he’s working in miniature, using song form to explore some rather simple, but seductive musical horizons. Água & Vinho features several of his best-known songs, but that’s not necessarily why you should hear it and then fall for its many charms. It’s simply that Gismonti’s songwriterly eloquence, and capacity to both engage with histories of Brazilian music and twist that knowledge to serve his own poetic ends, is at its finest here. From sweeping strings and pensive sambas to torch songs of sorts, Água & Vinho is a success because Gismonti places musicianship third to melody, and to curiosity of arrangement.