Caraguatá: Guitar Works from Uruguay

Away from Montevideo and the coastal resorts, Uruguay is a peaceful, pastoral country where rhythms and rituals have changed very little in the last 150 years. The delicate guitar music of conservatory-trained Gustavo Pazos Conde applies a classical precision to the native genres – milonga, chamarrita, candombe, waltz and tango – and paints subtle, at times abstract portraits of the landscapes. Two compositions are divided into three movements or airs, as Pazos Conde meditates on a theme and distils ideas and emotions. Fans of Argentinian musicians Dino Saluzzi and Edmundo Rivero will find themselves on familiar ground here, even if the motifs and rhythms are different. All 13 tracks are redolent of those cooling, pre-twilight hours when the mood is mellow and reflective. At times the songs are so alike that they seem to merge into one, but there are many nuances in the melodies and Pazos Conde is citing myriad sources as he plays. Quietly intense, rippling with fragile minor chords and unafraid of silence, Caraguatá is an antidote to the default panic modes of metropolitan life and music.