O3 of the Week: Brazzaville

So today I was on a transatlantic phone call with David Brown, lead singer of Brazzaville. Brown, who’s toured with Beck and has done various music projects for over 20 years, played the Midwest for the first time last April. I guess he liked it, because on Sept. 15 he’s coming back to Milwaukee to headline the Bay View Bash.

I love Brazzaville. It’s my current Object of Obssession (O3, get it?) because they do that samba + pop + sonorous mellow groove so well, the music slides into your soul. It’s seriously like an ear siesta.

I always know when I am listening to a special, special band when, as I’m hear the music for the first time, my surroundings become terribly acute. Like, when listening to Brazzaville, my computer screen grew glowier. My coffee cup was hotter than hot. My skin prickled a little bit, and I remember thinking I wanted to eat a croissant. It was a moment where I remembered everything I was doing at the time.

And it brought me back to lazy monsoon days of my childhood, where, after school, I did nothing but lie in bed reading Isabelle Allende novels in my socks and underwear, heat and humidity weighing down on me like a blanket.

So if “East LA Breeze”‘s melodies were like being in a tropical country, with its exotic rhythms and sambas, its lyrics took me to Los Angeles freeways and blue skies. (Brown, pictured below, was from Southern California too, like me!)

Anyway, this CD has been on majorly heavy rotation for DAYS now, and I’m off to buy all the Brazzaville CDs I can find.

It think you should listen to it too. It will make your whole weekend, I swear.