by RAF KATIGBAK

Cruising down the highway towards Toronto, the Brazilian Girls' drummer Aaron Johnston is trying his best not to get the shit slapped out of him. "We have a little thing called the Slap Club," explains Johnston, playfully trying to fend off attacks from his bandmates. "We all keep each other in line. If someone gets out of line, you have to slap 'em."

Crack! "Did you hear that? I just got slapped!"

Despite the constant fear of being bitch-slapped, Johnston and his bandmates are in a good mood, and so they should be. The quartet (rounded out by Jesse Murphy on bass, Didi Gutman on keys and Sabina Sciubba on vocals) have only been around since 2003. Their upbeat, danceable world-fusion sound, however, has helped them build up a cult following in the New York lounge club scene, cut an album for Verve Forecast (home of the Velvet Underground's catalogue), play high-profile jazz festivals and start their first North American tour.

The Brazilian Girls may only be in the terrible-twos phase of band adolescence, but they're no strangers to the music scene - members have previously played with the likes of Harry Belafonte, Bebel Gilberto and John Scofield. That said, it wasn't until their start at the Sunday-night weekly jams at forward thinking NYC nu-jazz lounge Nublu two years ago that the four finally found an organic, open-ended environment where they could make the kind of music they wanted. With deep house clashing with filtered dub, mellow bossa nova slipped alongside downtempo, R&B and electro pogo-ing with punk, Brazilian Girls are the vibrant and seductive sound of worlds colliding, New York-style. "All kinds of artists roll through Nublu. You see graphic designers, jazz heads and punk rockers there. It covers a lot of ground.

"We've never rehearsed," emphasizes Johnston, "so the music really did come out of playing live in front of an audience. It was about focusing on the audience and their reactions. That played a huge role in how the music developed."

Indeed, everything about the Brazilian Girls exudes an organic quality that comes with the combination of years of musical chops and an openness to fresh global sounds (Sciubba was born in Rome and raised in Munich and Nice, Gutman is from Buenos Aires, Murphy from California and Johnston from Kansas City). Singing in five different languages (German, French, Spanish, English and Italian), frontperson Sciubba embodies the playfully seductive sexual energy of the Brazilian Girls' music. "While we all love performing," says Johnston, "Sabina will steal the show in a second with her stage presence.

"We like having a good time and making fun of ourselves. We really don't take ourselves seriously, but we also take ourselves very seriously. Musicians love our music in general, but more importantly, non-musicians love it. We're not here to impress musicians, really, we've just kind of been doing what we're doing and hoping people catch on." Luckily for Johnston and the Girls, they are.

With guests at Main Hall tonight,
Thursday, March 10, 9 p.m., $16.50

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