Indio de Apartamento

An estranged cousin to last year’s Bill Frisell link-up, Lágrimas Mexicanas, this album is one that demands patience and time – even if it does contain only half an hour of music. Back in ruminative mode, Vinicius Cantuaria invites an eclectic cast of guests (Frisell among them) to flesh out his gaunt, electro-acoustic musings. More than welcome is longtime collaborator Ryuichi Sakamoto, whose piano remains a thing of tonal wonder, sowing dissonant chords into the otherwise sunny intro to ‘Moça Feia’. The dusty twang of Frisell’s guitar is limited to a scattering of tracks, though as standout ‘This Time’ proves, Frisell and Cantuaria can’t help but draw each other out into the middle ground – with Jesse Harris harmonising on an all-American chorus, the song has ‘playlist’ written all over it. The jazzy keys of Norah Jones and Olivier Glissant are diverting enough, but it’s the heat and langour of the Frisell-Cantuaria pairing that really focuses the record, burning through the percussive title-track. And on the closing ballad, ‘Pe Na Estrada,’ Frisell teases out Cantuaria’s terminally understated croon into something approaching passion. On this evidence, another collaboration between these two is surely a matter of when rather than if.