Grazie Wirtti
Matias Arriazu
Caçador de Infância

Grazie Wirtti voice
Matias Arriazu guitar
Recorded September 19, 2018 at Visom Digital, Rio de Janeiro
Engineer: Guido Pera
Mixed September 20, 2018 at Visom Digital, Rio de Janeiro by Guido Pera and Egberto Gismonti
Produced by Egberto Gismonti
Release date: August 23, 2019

Brazilian singer-songwriter Grazie Wirtte teams up with Argentinian guitarist-composer-arranger Matias Arriazu for this, their CARMO debut. The duo was discovered by label head Egberto Gismonti, who invited them to perform as part of a 2017 concert in Buenos Aires before welcoming them into the studio a year later to record Caçador de Infância.

(Photo credit: Ana Luz)

While the set list contains a sizable portion of original songs, a handful of favorites has been daubed onto the canvas. Among the livelier examples of their style are “Moleca Saci” (Breno Ruiz/Paul César Pinheiro), a showcase of distinctly Brazilian rhythms and melodic changes in which Wirtti treats her voice like a guitar, and “Verde Limão” (Andrès Beeuwsaert/Iara Ferreira), a deck of chants shuffled into twirling motifs. On the darker side of things is “Memórias de Valparaíso” by Guto Wirtti. A prayerful evocation of reminiscence, it waters roots that, while severed in the material world, nevertheless thrive in metaphysical soil. And I cannot fail to highlight the epic interpretation of “Eu vou pro Céu,” a public domain gem that tickles the heart with its lyricism and spiritual uncertainty.

In the duo’s own writing we find a lifetime’s worth of moods and interactions. Across both the title song and “Fuga de Trem,” they unfurl imaginative landscapes as yet untouched by the colonialists of maturation. Wirtti’s voice is a force to be reckoned with. Whether squeezing juice from the soul over Arriazu’s fluttering guitar work in “El Dulce Gavilan” or playing with onomatopoeia in “Iarare,” she shares her intimate understanding of presence in the creative act. While capable of quiet reflections, she blossoms when belting her heart out, as in “Gira com Jurema” and “Candombe Santo,” the latter an ornate vessel of geometric guitar oared by a singer who sees the horizon as another beginning—a palimpsest for personal identity.