Photo By Girlie Action

Since its release in February, the muli-culti "indie" group Brazilian Girls' self-titled album has been lauded as one of the best debuts of the year.

Sabina Sciubba says the formation of her group, Brazilian Girls, was a lot like meeting the love of one's life.

"You know, it's kind of how it is when you meet a woman," she says, switching genders to put this writer in the situation. "It could be the woman of your dreams who could be passing in front of you, but if you're not ready to go into that or if you're with some other woman at the same time that you're still involved in or you're just totally overwhelmed with your work and not paying attention, that's the same thing. It has to be at a certain stage of your development where you say 'OK, I'm open, I'm ready.' And I think that we all were (wanting) to have a band."

These days, Brazilian Girls are getting plenty of love from fans and critics who have fallen for the group's self-titled debut and its intoxicating and highly eclectic mixture of musical styles.

The four musicians who make up the group -- Sciubba, keyboardist Didi Gutman, bassist Jesse Murphy and drummer Aaron Johnston -- met in 2003, when they began jamming together at Nublu, a club in the East Village are of New York City. By that time, all four musicians had already traveled in some notable Jazz circles.

Gutman, a native of Buenos Aires, had played with (ironically enough) Brazilian singer Bebel Gilberto. Californian Murphy and former Kansas City resident Johnston had worked with John Zorn. As for Sciubba, she had moved to New York City in 2000 after having grown up in Munich, Germany, and Nice, France.

She wasn't a stranger to the "Big Apple," though, having come to New York to record a Jazz album about two years earlier with pianist Chris Anderson.

"I knew that the scene was very interesting and very varied compared to a lot of other places," Sciubba said, explaining her move. "I think all musicians love it. There's so much talent in New York. There are very few places where you find so many highly talented people crammed into one (area). And that was obviously the reason I wanted to come to New York."

When the four musicians started trying out music, the attraction to what they were creating was immediate.

"From my perspective, whatever any of the guys plays, I dig it," Sciubba says. "It's very rare that one of them does something where I'm like 'Oh, I wish he didn't (play that).' That's huge because a lot of times you love somebody as a person and you really want to make music, but then somebody goes in a direction you really don't want to go to.

"Again, I can perfectly compare it to somebody falling in love with someone," she continues. "Sometimes you can't really put your finger on it and there can be a lot of differences between people, but somehow the communication works and you understand each other. That's when it becomes obvious and undeniable that you're going to have a good time."

The group's sound and songs, in fact, came together quite quickly as the group honed their music during weekly gigs at Nubla. It didn't take long for Brazilian Girls to attract the interest of record labels, either, and the band signed with Verve Forecast, the non-Jazz imprint of the respected Jazz label.

"The first time we played there, I don't remember, it was maybe April (of 2003) or so," Sciubba says. "By July we already had a four-song EP recorded and the band name and it was pretty much a band ... Verve came into the picture very quickly too."

Sciubba also credits the atmosphere at Nublu at helping to inspire the Brazilian Girls' sound, a lively danceable mélange of styles that defies easy categorizing.

"It's very small, it has a very bohemian clientele, you know, like a lot of musicians, a lot of artists of all kinds, like poets, musicians, composers and writers, photographers," Sciubba says of Nublu. "It's a group of almost friends. It's a real little community.

The music on their album reflects the eclectic, and friendly late-night vibe of Nubla. "Don't Stop" and "Dance Till The Morning Sun" are among several songs that would sound right at home in dance clubs, with their pulsing beats anchoring enticing Pop melodies. The multi-cultural approach to the Brazilian Girls' music surfaces in songs like "Sirenes De La Fete" and "Die Gedanken Sind Frei (Thoughts Are Free)," which employ south-of-the-border rhythms and find Sciubba, who speaks five languages, singing in French and German, respectively.

On several other songs, the Brazilian Girls dial down the energy with winning results. "Homme," with its faux string-laden melody brings a touch of elegance to the CD. "Lazy Lover" is a languid ballad, whose relaxed Latin tempo complements the song's humorous lyrics about a beau whose romantic skills are less than dazzling.

Such songs have helped the Brazilian Girls disc earn rave reviews since its release in February, with some critics making it an early favorite for debut album of 2005. And while the group is touring this fall to support the debut album, Sciubba is eager to move forward, noting that the Brazilian Girls have already recorded several songs for a second album that should arrive next spring.

"I think it's going to be different, certainly," Sciubba says. "I have a feeling it's going to be a little -- (and) this might change with new songs being added to it -- it's going to be a little rougher in terms of maybe a little less pretty and maybe a little less clean."

But it will still sound like the Brazilian Girls.

"I think that generally, the fact that it's the four of us playing together ... it's going to have a similar style," Sciubba says. "When the four of us get together, it's always going to come out in some kind of way similar because I think everyone has a little bit of a defined personality. So it's not going to be straightforward Jazz or Techno or it's never going to probably fit a pre-defined category as such. I think it's kind of a unique thing. We've kind of found a niche. We call it Melting Pop. Actually a journalist came up with that, somebody in Canada wrote that in the headline. I thought it was one of the best descriptions I've read so far."