MAKING LOVE WITH BRAZILIAN GIRLS
Brazilian Girls, a trendy New York City band which explores brilliance of electronic dance music through an eclectic mix of chanson, reggae, house and tango, recently released their fourth album, “Let’s Make Love”.
The title track gives off a confident, pronounceable demand and assertiveness of overcoming the rigmarole of daily life.
Front woman, Sabina Sciubba, understatedly channels frustration in the song of a life that seems mundane, Oh just yesterday I was feeling so down / Didn’t know how to get up / You shook me up to take a ride around town.
Principally the suggestion to make love is a resolve from the partner of the female voice in the song. In this dynamic the partner is presenting the female with an alternative to life’s dilemma, a passiveness which in a sense revolves around the general themes throughout the album of much needed interventions in ordinary lives searching for love, hopeful distractions from everyday life.
The album begins with a resounding and hypnotic synth, bass and drum intro which kicks into Sciubba’s neurotic, cutting delivery of her lyrics to the song “Pirates”, a schizo-sexy, dance track with lush lyricism in the chorus, steady dose of a musical charade which serves as a joy ride and repetitiveness of a soft, cool, bass riff.
Oceanness of the song is in the chorus especially, how vast the lovability and endearing lovingness expressed as a chant of Aa-ah. The song generates effervescence and sets a tone to the manic frenzied-positivity in a miraculous life, certainly not deviating from the feel-good, charmed mystery of most of the songs.
A follow up charge can be felt in the second song, “Go out More Often”, a humbling look at city life, The wind is warm, the streets are soft / People are laughing / The city’s rain, the river’s free / Oh my darling, enamored further by lights on the boulevard and cafes, trembling sidewalk, the moon and running buses. An up-tempo beginning led by fury of a bass line and Sciubba’s inspired singing flows passionately into the chorus where she chimes Come on darling, let’s get lost, followed by the male response, Let’s go out more often. As a recurring theme of necessary attempt to live life and fulfill its meaning, the lyrics are disguised as the outside world wanting you, inviting you to partake in the eccentricity. The mood of the song is endless merrymaking and never-ending joy. Out to celebrate our love, dance the night away ’til dusk.
“Wild Wild Web” then is a warning to the trappings of life online, presented as a new wave disco dance number.
Sciubba’s French-accented vocals, party girl friendly, model-esque, capture a sophisticated and sexy contradiction to the sing-a-long chorus of, It’s a wi-hi-hi-hi
Wi-hi-hi-ild- web. The internet/social media experience is imagined, On such a lovely day, you’re staring out the window: The window to the world. The chorus emphasizes dilemma of disillusionment, Makes you forget the world / Makes you forget yourself / Makes you forget your friends. Somehow hope is desirable, You meet someone, someone you like / And you don’t know why / You both open it up, and you forget the words, ’cause you forget the world.
“We Stopped” then is a logical flow into theme of love and loss, Oh you dropped, you dropped me like a wet umbrella / It was not a very elegant move / And I cried, oh yes I cried. Given an upsurge the bass driven, steady beat is magically interrupted by a Hammond organ solo. Sciubba in the second half of the song asserts herself, basically affirming what is true love; affection. One strong aspect of the Brazilian Girls’ sound is the transcendence of eccentric rhythms and musical grooves, along with the multilingual forms.
“Salve” is an example of that, leisurely and musically walking through an arrangement of horns and Sciubba’s sensuality.
“Karakoy” has the same musical stroll at the center of a dreamy, sight-seeing adventure about missed chance at love.
“Balla Balla” is the heart beating, heartfelt song, which pulls from the traditional Brazilian Girls formula, enigmatic dance rhythms, Sciubba’s sex appeal, erotic interludes, alternating between chants from the men in the band and her highly charged affinity for Eros.
A song like “Woman in the Red” is an example of how the band, with this album, seems more precise, perhaps influenced by Sciubba’s motherhood and solo effort, a chance to pull in their hyper-eroticizing of world rhythms. However the last song on the album, “Looking for Love” reiterates the disconcertedness of finding love in a modern world. Certainly at heart, The Brazilian Girls are true to their sound as stated on their Twitter account.
Everyone loves Brazilian Girls!
