Nina Miranda's father is Brazilian, her mother is English, she
was educated in Brazil, England and France, wanted to be an opera singer when
she was a tyke, studied art when she was older, and talks very fast. Talks like
there's no time, no tomorrow; a woman in hurry with a bus called fame to
catch.
Nina Miranda isn't a household name but most people have heard her
extraordinary voice and the spellbinding atmosphere she conjures up from a
cross-pollination of all those influences in a band called Smoke
City.
Nina Miranda is the voice in the music underneath the new Levi's ad
(in which a drowning man is rescued by mermaids), a small splash of truly
invigorating and fertile post-trip hop fusion that comes on like a cross between
Portishead, Bjork, Nico, Astrid Gilberto, Serge Mendez, Santana, Jane Birkin and
the Salsoul Orchestra.
"Underwater Love" is Miranda and Smoke City's
ticket to ride - but it's also only a minute flicker of Smoke City's massively
eclectic take on music. When was the last time you read about a band where the
lead singer whispers and wails in English, Portugese and French, that lists
their influences as, variously, Bob Marley, Brazil's Luiz Eca Tamba Trio, West
African and Indian percussion rhythms, the films of Frederico Fellini, Carmen
Miranda, Marvin Gaye, JJ Cale, the Beatles, KRS One, Grandmaster Flash, Burning
Spear, John Coltrane, the Specials, the Sunday afternoon jazz sessions at
Dingwalls, Gene Kelly in "Singing In The Rain", Santana, Joni Mitchell, Led
Zeppelin, and Joan Armatrading.
All of which finds expression in their
forthcoming debut set which contrasts soft, sultry ballads with loud,
atmospheric instrumentals; Brazilian drummers and a 25-piece string section with
samples and drum machines.
"We aren't interested in doing anything
similar to what's been done before," Miranda says. "This is a band that that
wasn't really going to be a band. It was just when I met Mark through clubbing
and we got talking, next thing we knew everything went off like fireworks and we
came up with 'Underwater'. Then we met Chris (Franck) and it was like 'hello,
let's be a band'. We all feel quite unselfconscious and let one another run wild
in the studio. We don't limit ideas, we encourage them.
"I'm always
getting images and sensations. In the previous conversation I had an image of
paintings, yet they were all very seperate, hanging on walls alone and not
linked. I guess this is very strange for us. We didn't actually dream about the
song being used for the Levis ad - they've used quite a lot of loud tracks
recently for their ads but it seems perfect to have something
mellow."
Fact was that the agency involved in finding the right music for
the ad had spent several fruitless months diving in the bottomless well of music
when they came up with a copy of 1995's "Rebirth Of Cool" compilation upon which
nestled Smoke City and "Underwater Love".
It's one of those little beasts
that never fails to surprise on repeated listenings; there are so many clever
little twists and turns, sounds that drop in and out, subtle and not-so-subtle
tempo changes, Miranda alternating languages as she huskily frolics in a sea of
sensuality.
"I'm still discovering new bits in the song," she says, "and
it always sounds very different to everything else. I like the way it goes off
into something mellow and underworld." She laughs at the mention of Bath
trip-hop minor legends Portishead whose "Dummy" is arguably the catalyst for
much of what has developed in the dark leftfield of UK dance and dub in recent
years and whose work "Underwater Love" most closely resembles, although it's a
bit like clutching at straws.
"We did that song and some of the others
two years before anybody had heard of Portishead and trip-hop, "Miranda says.
"But there's a big difference: 'Underwater Love' and whatever else we do makes
you smile and it's about taking people somewhere really nice.
"We're
really looking forward to taking our music on the road. Our shows will be
something that flies around the room, this atmosphere that's tangible ... and
will follow everybody home like a happy little cloud.
"I don't like all
that angst and darkness stuff that's been around until recently. I used to be
riddled with angst and cry a lot. Then I went to Brazil - the people were so
optimistic, and yet the conditions they lived in were a lot worse than those
most of us live in. I think it has a lot to do with the weather. Why be down?
It's almost like here in England you can't tell anybody you are feeling
great.
"Perhaps that is changing. In London it's Spring now and there
seems to be an optimistic feeling again. There's a lot of variety coming out in
music again. The clubs are getting a different mixture of music going. I hope
ours is influential because we really want to get across what feel. Our music
comes from the heart, it is music that is felt. It isn't music to sit around and
feel comfortably miserable to."
She sounds so convinced about this, so
determined that along with the removal of the stale and dull Tories from power,
that Smoke City can help lift the cloud of depression from struggling
England.
And the band know what they want. Fame matters in Miranda's
terms if it helps sell the album, turns more people onto their music. She
couldn't care a less if some might see a stigma in being associated with the
Levi's ad. What fame means other than that is a blur that has quickly become a
normality.
"People have this image of us going around to parties all the
time," she quips. "We were going to a lot more parties before all this happened.
If you go out you have to be careful of what you say and what you do. And
success is terrible on your friends. But we've got to go for it now: I've learnt
very quickly in this world that to seize the moment is all.
"You know it
may sound strange but until the record came out and people reacted well to it, I
could never even tell if I could sing or if it was a weird figment of my
imagination. With vocals you don't know if your friends are being polite. And my
family never really encouraged me. It would be like 'Mum, I could be a singer"
and she'd reply, "It's not very practical, darling'."
Now it is, and
there's little doubt that Nina Miranda can really sing, and that Smoke City have
a quixotic, engaging, world feel that wriggles class in all it's polyrhythms,
jungle fever, bossa nova and samba beats and electronic atmospheres.
Such
a comment evidently pleases her and she starts talking about a track on the
forthcoming album, "It's like a drum'n'bass symphony and it reminds me of 'Peter
& The Wolf', the classical piece. It's big, very, very big." And all the
space Nina Miranda can find echoes in her voice as she hurries off to catch that
bus into the future.