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This NYC-based trio were born of a love affair of sorts — a love affair with girl-from-Ipanema nostalgia. Singer Juju Stulbach was merely playing the role of a singer in a film that singer/guitarist Chris Root was helping to score. His taste for Brazilian pop coupled with her Brazilian roots formed the basis of what became Mosquitos when keyboardist Jon Marshall Smith came on board in 2003. Unlike Brooklyn’s more avant Brazilian Girls, Mosquitos have never felt the need to experiment much beyond creating a pleasantly warm blend of indie-pop hooks and bossa nova Brazil. The results are most reminiscent of the cosmopolitan pop of fellow Manhattanites Ivy, especially when Stulbach is singing in English, supported by little more than the steady strum of an acoustic guitar, a simple piano hook, and an almost inaudibly subtle rhythm track, in the alluring “Nowhere Left To Go.” Root uses his voice to offset her just enough to create a diversion, but she’s the star of the show. And Root and Smith seem perfectly comfortable staying out of her way, creating spare, sensual backdrops with a hint of the exotic for her to escape into with that breathy voice.
Mosquitos + Oppenheimer + Chop Chop + Cars & Trains | T.T. the Bear’s Place, 10 Brookline St, Cambridge | October 22 | 617.492.BEAR
