Blame It on the Bossa Nova

MOSQUITO HOST: Guitarist Chris Root (right) first met singer Juju Stulbach on a movie set. "First thing I think," he says, "is that I have to kiss this girl."

A girl from Ipanema, a boy from Philly, a band from New York City -- aw, it's Mosquitos.

by A.D. Amorosi

Of all the samba-tinged artists to reawaken the breezy bossa nova, only one plays it straight and soft: Mosquitos. The restraint within their sound, as heard on their eponymous debut on Bar/None, has all the slow, soulful earmarks of samba’s intimate spontaneity -- a sensual skronk that occasionally replaces jazzy, Braza-sway with the flinty spark of alterna-pop. F

lirty Brazilian vocalist Juju

Stulbach

's breathy tones in Portuguese and English give Mosquitos a sandy, sexy authenticity. Manhattanites Chris Root and Jon Marshall Smith's bright guitars, bubbling organs and flitting rhythms make Mosquitos buzz. Blame Root. The former Philadelphian who lives in the East Village used to make cranky hip-hop with Black Beans and currently leads the Beck-Bacharach-bossa-rock of AM60. His songs put rhythm before all else.

"I was a drummer, a sucky one, at one point. What I write starts with the drums," explains

Root, just back from Christmas in Wyndmoor

. He credits his old bandmate, Philly’s Chuck Treece, with whipping him into shape for projects like Black Beans and its Band of Gypsies-like metal-hop. "We did cool stuff: opened for Bad Brains, played CBGB’s with Smashing Pumpkins and Hole, made a nice punk rock demo for Capitol. But they liked Chuck, not the band. Capitol said they’d give Chuck a deal if he had Living Colour play on the record." Insulted, the band broke with Capitol, made an EP, toured with G. Love and hung with Pearl Jam in Seattle until Black Beans busted in 1996.

Back in New York, writing his own songs, Root called in some ol’ Beans and Fun Lovin’ Criminal Mackie Jayson to record them. "One [song], "Always Music Sixty,’ was about my super yelling at us playing music in my apartment, [which was] number 60. He’s Ukrainian and didn’t speak English so well, so it came out: "Always music 60, turn down.’"

A band name was born, one in league with Root’s songwriting, which veers lyrically toward tales of his East Village block, the street where he would eventually meet

Stulbach

. Musically AM60 leans on the jazzy chord changes and hidden complexity of ’60s pop. "I don’t have favorite songwriters. But I love The Beatles and whoever wrote for Dean Martin. My mom was into bossa nova. In fact, when I started writing music, my mom told me when she was pregnant she used to put her belly next to the speaker while playing Sergio Mendez’s Brasil ’65."

Having been kicked around by American labels, Root sent one AM60 demo to the U.K.'s Shifty Disco with a note:

"Please make me famous in England so I can come and be chased around by English girls for a change."

Root laughs. "Three songs into the demo, the label head’s on the phone with me screaming, "England needs your fucking music, you’re going to bring sunshine to this gloomy fucking place.’"

Within two months, AM60 was released, "Just a Dream" became a hit and they are, as they say, big in Japan. "We’ve been playing to 25,000 to 50,000 screaming, crying girls," says Root, who just finished recording AM60’s second album. "The record we made won’t die."

Returning to N.Y.C. in the summer of 2002, in the midst of AM60’s success story, Root stopped by the set of pal Geard Argidros’ movie, The Popper, starring Juju Stulbach. "I walk in. See Juju. First thing I think is that I have to kiss this girl. I looked at her every chance I got." He also heard her, humming. They talked. He gave her his CD. Back home in Brazil, she sent him a card saying how much she loved AM60. With time to kill, a couple thousand dollars in the bank and courage to spare, Root called Stulbach, and said, "We’re making music together." A week later they’re on the beach in Ipanema, writing songs, in love with each other and the samba.

Where AM60 tried -- lucklessly, repeatedly -- for a U.S. record deal, Mosquitos took their demo to one label: Bar/None. "And they signed us. Look, I know all of what I said sounds crazy. But it’s all true." Truer still is that Mosquitos -- half of which was recorded in N.Y.C., where Stulbach now lives with Root -- holds sacred as many samba/bossa traditions as it breaks. The broken-samba-pop tunes are funny ("Policeman"), trippy ("Semente," written by Stulbach about mushrooms) and lusty, whether hum-sung in English or Portuguese.

""Preguiça?’" asks Root. "Juju wrote that. Says it’s about staying up late. I don’t believe her. I think it’s about sex." But most of all, Mosquitos is about the flowering of romance, what with songs like "Love Stew" and its airy co-vocals and "Nõs Dois," the warmest of wiry bossa tunes. "We wrote that while watching the sun go down in Ipanema. I said, "See how that looks? That’s how I want our music to sound.’"

Mosquitos play Sun., Jan. 11, 7 p.m., $10, Tin Angel, 20 S. Second St., 215-928-0770.