By Brazilian Girls, 2005

"Brazilian Girls" is a name designed to steer you to the "wrong" sites in a Web search, and the not-so-thinly-veiled innuendo (one chorus is "Pussy pussy pussy marijuana") doesn't help either. But the music the Brazilian Girls make is more seductive than salacious. And except for one member, they aren't girls.

The one who is, Italian-born Sabina Sciubba, is a former jazz singer who has the hipper-than-thou chanteuse thing going: a cigarette dangling from her lips, a beret cocked sideways on her head, black-stockinged legs crossed suggestively...at least she sure sounds that way. Sciubba sits astride basslines that insinuate themselves like a sideways glance in a smoky bar, as a sensual mix of live drumming and gritty trip-hop lounge grooves skew to the side of late-night alcohol-clouded vision.

The English, French, Spanish, and German-language lyrics and Weill/Brecht-meets-Baja Marimba Band horns only add to the delirious dislocation. With a sophisticated electronic palette, Brazilian Girls exude that hip retro-future sound that propelled Deee-Lite back in 1990. Hopefully they won't also be one-hit wonders.

--John Diliberto

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