Shaped by online exchanges between Rio and Brooklyn, ‘it’s nice to see a lake in your eyes’ by Carol Maia and Jeremy Gustin leaves no doubt about their shared sense of adventure. Brazilian singer-songwriter Maia and avant drummer Gustin swapped files, felt the jeopardy and revelled in the surprises of their long distance collab to arrive here, a recording of thrilling new pop awareness. Somewhere between tuned in NY art rock and the nu-tropicalia‘it’s nice to see a lake in your eyes’ has a freshness that keeps you on your toes
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The opening tracks signpost the open road this album follows. Bubbles softly eloquent chamber music eases you in, piano droplets pattering, an oboe calling and Gustin’s cushioned drums padding in playfully. As a gentle bossa sashays in, Maia and Gustin’s twin vocals relax into close harmonies as the whole song slips by with a smile. There’s little time to cosy up though, the slinky reptilian funk of Aloe takes an abrupt turn, all loping beats, Maia’s sultry rap and a cooing psychedelic hook. It’s in the Juana Molina sonic zone.
From here ‘it’s nice to see a lake in your eyes’ carries on blurring the boundaries between the expected and unexpected but without losing its song-based focus. Um Lugar is a sparkling pop tune, not brash or brat-ish but catchy, bright and flush with quirky prog detailing (you know zithers, harpsichords and recorders). Equally sophisticated, Mansidão nods to eighties electro-pop but with rich jazz-ballad overtones in Maia’s vocal and some delicate sax flutters from guest Nora Stanley. Even the more orthodox tunes are irresistibly spiked with just a touch of daring. On Derixa La as Maia’s nimble vocal pirouettes through the melody, Gustin’s drumming brings texture and whispers of a smoochy rhumba rhythm. Meanwhile the gorgeous acoustic Lake Of Meaning mischievously slips some McCartney-esque piano vamping underneath its fulsome harmonic tunefulness. The tune also introduces Ricardo Dias Gomes’ unflustered tenor as the song’s narrator.
Cannily Gustin and Maia chose to flesh out their original song exchanges by introducing a tight circle of other musician friends to the wonders of ‘it’s nice to see a lake in your eyes’. Joining Dias Gomes, there’s also Maia’s fellow Rio scenesters Frederico Heliodoro and Paulo Emmery as well as Brooklynites Will Graefe and Ryan Dugre. This isn’t a bunch of strangers either. Emmery played alongside Carla Maia on last years very special Wolfgang Perez album while Graefe and Dugre joined Gustin on Ricardo Dias Gomes shape-shifting ‘Muito Sol’ release.
Such close connections mean that the ‘it’s nice to see a lake in your eyes’ vibe doesn’t get upset by the comings and goings. On Um Pouco Vivo Heliodoro moves away from bass/ guitar duties to take lead vocals, his dreamy croon suiting both the song’s post-bossa twists and some spacey jazz scatt. There’s also a full reshuffle for the Os Mutantes echoing ballad, Vou Ficar, Gustin still leading from the drum stool but with Dugre on bass, Graefe guitaring and Dias Gomes taking lead vocal. Again the album’s magic is undisturbed and the unconventional negotiated in a song where quirkily, half the three minutes is focused on an instrumental prologue.
What Carol Maia and Jeremy Gustin have achieved here is to make What Carol Maia and Jeremy Gustin have achieved here is to make a series of songs that shun immediacy or any overused hooks but which constantly intrigue and enchant.. Check out the eye- fluttering innocence of As Horas, with its wirey farfisa sounds and sixties acapella break, or the shifting moods of Flow Wolf which has unexpected improv drum-breaks bursting through the rippling calm. Any album where the intimate title track is an understated LA new age instrumental and the closing tune Plim, a brief forty-seven seconds of sweet piano/ voice twinkles is clearly not going through the motions.
The Maia/Gustin partnership have drawn on the sophisticated pop of St Etienne or Stereolab plus classic Veloso/ Ze intuition and made an album which is very much their own. Hopefully this it’s just the beginning for the partnership and soon they’ll be up there with Sessa, Thiago Nassif and Bala Desejo forging ahead with MPB’s future.
Get your copy of ‘it’s nice to see a lake in your eyes‘ by Carol Maia & Jeremy Gustin from your local record store or direct from Hive Mind Records HERE
