Brazilian Girls: Something to get naked about
 

by T. Virgil Parker

  I've come to the conclusion that every member of this band is an event as well as an individual. This is why people take off their clothes at Brazilian Girls concerts. The combined kinetic friction of so many avatars on one stage turns up the heat unbearably. Sabina Sciubba, if she were a little less edgy, would make the ideal Bond girl. Mysterious, painfully sexy, and intellectually provocative, all she would have to do is stand there to create an uproar, but she does much more than that.

Bassist Jesse Murphy and drummer Aaron Johnston could easily be mainstream modeling icons, if they could stand still long enough-and a bigger if- if they could lose their contempt for all things vacuous. Keyboardist Didi Gutman is redefining suavity for the 21st Century, in a jubilantly Postmodern way. These are the immediate impressions, before you hear a note.

I know what you're thinking. Four attractive musicians, strong synthesizer foundation: Euro Cheese. Not at all. If you put Nine Inch Nails and the B-52s in a bag and shook it up, you would get a tiny bit of what this sound is about. But it will not stay in one place long enough to be defined. Anarchy and eloquence jockey for position in this music. It will be danceable, but that is the only clue about where it will go next.

Didi Gutman is all about twisting Pop into a high art form, and is obviously more interested in the act of creating than he is by any of the trappings of success.

T. Virgil Parker: The Brazilian girls appear to be taking off in a rather significant way How does that feel?

Didi Gutman: I don't feel that, I don't see it like that; we're just playing music like we always did. I don't think it'll change. To me everything has been great and everything that has happened to us has been cool.

TVP; You have such a continental sound, in terms of aesthetic, are you surprised America is embracing it so thoroughly?
DG: This country has been great; we've been digging it. Everywhere we go it's been open to us, it's been refreshing. It's been nice in all kinds of places.

TVP: You have the underground people falling all over you, and you have the Manhattan trendsetters, and the Jam crowd. They're all seeing something different, what do you do to attract that kind of diversity?
DG: Well, you know, that's who we are we and we like all these different kinds of things; we listen to all kinds of music. We get invited to all different kinds of events and we get to play all different kinds of scenes. We can play at the club, we can play with the jam bands, we can play concellos. It's nice. We like to be with all the participants of all these different things.

TVP: Most Electronica out there is pretty canned.
DG: We are not exactly Electronica. We have an electronic element to our music, but its mixed with real playing. They don't know how to categorize us. Someone threw us into Oprah Magazine, which is certainly not our audience. I don't know how we ended up there.

TVP: Are you laying a lot of loops or are you playing everything pretty much live?
DG: Both, it's a hybrid. The thing about the loops is that when we play them live we can bring them in and out and mix them and tweak- we're not playing to a record, is what I'm trying to say. We can be dynamic with an intention, so we can keep it all spontaneous and improvise with the loops.

TVP: The sound is so organic that it is surprising that its so synthesizer driven.

DG: It makes sense when you see us live, how it's integrated, and all the elements. Certainly, Aaron the drummer, he can play too, he's got such good timing and that helps. It's not that easy playing with such a complex thing.

TVP: Most bands that do what you're doing don't have a real drummer.

DG: Right, we're a band, we're not a DJ, we're a band.

TVP: All of the different elements that come into what you're playing, is it hard to extract exactly what you're looking for?

DG: I don't know exactly what I'm looking for; a lot of it is like spontaneous intuition. There's some work in finding the organic elements that make the sound, programming and stuff but when it starts, you have what you want, each time. It's like preparing a colorful painting. We don't conceptualize or have an exact idea of the painting and how we're going to make it. Start with one brush and then we'll see what happens. I don't know exactly what I want.

TVP: I heard that you just walked into Electric Ladyland Recording Studio and just started composing.

DG: We'll its something we did, also a brought the ideas that everyone was working on and we developed them there. So a few songs were playing from before and songs that came into fruition as well, they came from a tincture or a groove. But then everybody contributes something to the completion by just playing together, and the way we do it in the studio is the same way we do it live.
We went to Electric Ladyland to record 12 songs and we ended up recording 25.

TVP: You’re playing out constantly. Are you writing while you tour?
DG: No, I wish.

TVP: But the live experience obviously feeds into what you write, with that immediate feel.
DG: We try to keep it fresh. We really try to make it something of the moment. It isn’t a Broadway musical where everything is rehearsed. Certain songs just work, and chasing the ideas won’t make them any better, but there’s a lot of areas where we’ll just see what happens.

TVP: You band is made up entirely of iconoclasts, very intense individualists. Does that make it easier, or harder to deal with?
DG: I don’t know. Everyone is cool, and we’re trying to understand each other. We have this thing called the rotating asshole, an entity, a ghost that will take over your body. Every one of us carries it at one point or another. When you’re on the road, you can hide somewhere on the bus. Sooner or later everyone is going to show their color. Everyone is being themselves, and that’s no big deal. You can recognize yourself in that. I love my band mates.

TVP: Is the industry trying to define you, or are you getting a lot of free reign?
DG: Starting with Verve was a good thing. Verve is off-center, to the left. They don’t have to show numbers like other labels. They aren’t pushing for the radio thing. They’re still marketing us, just like you have to market anything. As far as creative freedom, we really have it with them. If they have anything to say to us, it is usually a welcome contribution.

TVP: Do you think you’ll be getting the same kind of reception in Europe?
DG: We’re as popular in Europe as we were a year ago in the States, so we’re playing smaller venues. A lot of our popularity is by word-of-mouth. The first time we played Los Angeles we played for 100 people. Then next time, 200, 400, 1,000 and so on. We’re starting in Germany this week. There’s always some kind of reaction when we play. I think we’re going to have fun.

TVP: Your sound has a very European feel.
DG: I always thought Europe was going to eat us alive. It was unexpected that we found so much success in the U.S. But I think we’re going to have fun in Europe.

TVP: How did you end up playing Jam festivals?
DG: Some of the bands in that scene called us to do that. I wasn’t too aware of the scene. I was quite surprised by how big it is, this huge venue for live music, music that as you say, isn’t canned. That’s a thing we can work with, because we do jam.
The industry is getting a backlash from all that crap out there.

TVP: …And high time. You’re being very true to your inspirations.
DG: That has a lot to do with our home base in New York, which is the club Nublu. It was so free there, and we didn’t have any expectation of taking this anywhere else. It wasn’t a big deal if Sabina wanted to sing a song in Spanish and one in German. If you look at it from a marketing standpoint you’d be thinking that you had to cater to the scene here. But we had this space and it was Sunday night, and it was kind of like going to church. We did whatever we wanted. It ended up one of our strengths.