Caçador de Infância is the debut album of the duo formed by the Brazilian singer and lyricist Grazie Wirtti and the Argentinian guitarist, composer and arranger Matias Arriazu. It appeared in 2019 on Carmo, the label of Egberto Gismonti, who discovered the pair and produced the record. Eleven songs for voice and eight-string guitar move between Brazilian and wider Latin American forms, with a contemporary approach to arrangement and an intimate, concentrated sound.
Gismonti invited the duo to take part in his concert in Buenos Aires at the end of 2017 and then offered to produce their album. The session took place on 19 September 2018 at Visom Digital in Rio de Janeiro, with Guido Pera as engineer, and the music was mixed there the next day by Pera and Gismonti. Arriazu writes and arranges for the eight-string guitar, one of Gismonti's own instruments, while Wirtti writes most of the lyrics and shapes the songs with her own phrasing.
Most of the programme is original material by the two, and the title song sets an excerpt from the poetry of Manoel de Barros. Wirtti uses her voice almost as a second instrument, with occasional double tracking. In Iarare she plays with onomatopoeia over a driving rhythm, and in Candombe Santo she sings at full strength over an intricate, almost geometric guitar part. The covers include Moleca Saci by Breno Ruiz and Paulo César Pinheiro, O Ronco da Cuíca by João Bosco and Aldir Blanc, and a long reading of the traditional Eu vou pro Céu.
In Jazz Journal in 2019, Michael Tucker heard "music of both intimate cast and irresistible Latin drive and vocal incantation", with the tempo-twisting finesse familiar from Gismonti's own ECM albums. Mark Sampson in Songlines (2020) found it "a minimalist, meditative affair that demands patience and concentration". He compared the pair's rapport with the duets of Maria João and Mário Laginha, while wishing at times for more instrumental variety. Tucker also noted that the booklet prints the Portuguese poetry but no English translations of the lyrics.
This is the CD edition, catalogue number CARMO/17, first released on 23 August 2019. Carmo, named after the town where Gismonti was born, is manufactured and marketed by ECM Records.
