Momento

iTunes Review

Dreamy, laid-back, and incredibly alluring, Bebel Gilberto’s music washes over you like a fine ocean mist on a steamy day. Her ability to integrate the more traditional sounds of Brazil with a jazzy sophistication and tasteful, barely pulsing electronic beats has become her beacon, and few others do it with as much charm and ease. The title track sets the mood perfectly: The soothing strains of acoustic guitars are seamlessly blended with elegantly programmed rhythms while Gilberto’s calming, seductive vocals (sung in Portuguese) emerge as just one more color in the tonal picture. Her gorgeous, bossa-soaked reading of Cole Porter’s “Night and Day” puts the focus more squarely on her shimmering voice, as does “Um Segundo,” which benefits from one of the album’s sparest settings. The breezy, swaying “Tranquilo” is more vibrant, featuring an attractive horn arrangement and tropical Latin rhythms approaching samba. On “Bring Back the Love,” however, which features the support of the Brazilian Girls, the beats, though still decidedly downtempo, are a bit more pronounced and club-ready, but far from jarring. In fact, jarring is the last word you’d use to describe the sounds on Momento. Gilberto instinctively understands the delicate balance between hot and cool, a trait that makes her work more enticing than exciting — more a radiant sunset than a blazing sun.