Egberto Gismonti - Academia Da Danças (1974)

Often regarded as his earliest masterpiece, Academia Da Danças was the album that saw Egberto Gismonti sign with EMI Brazil.  With their recording & production facilities to hand, Gismonti would record some of his most ambitious and sophisticated albums for the label.  Early on in this blog I posted the technicolour adventures of Circense (link below) from 1980, and Academia from six years prior shows Gismonti well on his way to that kind of sound, with two side-long suites.

The first of these suites is the fully-segued Corações Futuristas (a title Gismonti would reuse for his next album), made up of five songs.  Strings and synths abound, and in fact introduce the album, as wordless vocals accompany the entry of Gismonti's rolling guitar arpeggios.  There's almost a prog feel in the playing and arrangements, which reminded me of early Steve Hackett; wonder if he heard this album?  Given his relationship with Brazilian artist Kim Poor, it's entirely possible.  Some of the song titles here, for instance Palace of Paintings and The Enchanted Door (in their English translations) are also kind of Hackett-like.

After all the energetic twists and turns of the first suite, the album's not-entirely-segued second half (titled Academia Da Danças) starts with two gorgeous haunting ballads, with Egberto on vocals and piano.  The arrangements are stripped right back - a bit of organ here, a lovely flute feature there.  The album picks up pace again after that, for four short instrumentals that dance around in great arrangements, until the memorably bizarre finale of crazed electric piano & flute collapses in a hallucinatory swirl of electronics.  A highly recommended album from a singular artist.

link
pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Circense
Sanfona (by which time Gismonti was using 'Academia Da Danças' as a band name)
Dança Dos Escravos
In Montreal (with Charlie Haden)