Monday, October 03, 2005  

Brazilian Girls
"Don't Stop"
Brazilian Girls
(Verve Forecast, 2005)

I'm back to writing for the Washington Post after a five-year absence. Here's the first review....

Washington Post, Monday, October 3, 2005; Page C05

Brazilian Girls

You'll have to forgive me for not remembering much about Brazilian Girls' first song at the packed 9:30 club on Saturday. I was too busy trying to figure out if singer Sabina Sciubba was naked save for the expertly placed black censor bars over her private parts (and one over her eyes). It wasn't until later in the set, and after a thorough journalistic investigation, that I determined she was wearing a flesh-colored bodysuit. Still, when the black bar covering Sciubba's chest finally fell off I nearly fainted -- along with the rest of the audience. Such is the seductive power of Brazilian Girls, none of whom are from that country and only one of whom is a woman.

Sciubba grew up in Rome, Nice and Munich, and is comfortable singing in Italian, French and German, as well as English. Throw in her performance-art bent and she's the perfect frontperson for Brazilian Girls' cosmopolitan club music, which touches on everything from samba and reggae to house and lounge. The New York band's sometimes bloodless self-titled debut received a complete transfusion in concert, with Sciubba doing her best to get hearts racing while Didi Gutman (keyboards), Jesse Murphy (bass) and Aaron Johnston (drums) injected tunes like "Die Gedanken Sind Frei (Thoughts Are Free)," "Sirenes de la Fete" and "Me Gustas Cuando Callas" with a lot more thump. Plus, it didn't hurt to see Sciubba shimmying along to the sensuous songs.

One highlight was when former jazz singer Sciubba led the Girls through a fever-pitched club version of the Cole Porter standard "Just One of Those Things." But the pinnacle occurred when the crowd climbed onstage for the great dance single "Don't Stop," with people of all sorts shaking their booties with wild abandon. "Don't touch the musicians," Sciubba said, though stealing kisses on the cheek from the sexy singer appeared to go over just fine. --Christopher Porter

Buy some Brazilian Girls.

Posted by CP | Link |

---