Moriah Plaza

Moriah Plaza co-founders Tamir Chen and Moosh Lahav trace the origin of their band's blend of Brazilian soul, Western jazz and stateless psych-lounge/dance music to the 1990s when, as children, they first encountered a wave of bossa nova and samba groups cresting in Tel Aviv. Additional inspiration came in the form of commercial muzak, film soundtracks and the pianist who performed daily in the lobby of the Sheraton Moriah, which overlooked the Dead Sea, where Chen's mother worked. Moriah Plaza was produced in cahoots with two Brazilians and fellow Berlin residents, poet and singer Cecília Erismann and singer-songwriter-synth wizard Flavia Annechini, founder of the Tropical Disco Club, a platform for promoting Brazilian culture in Berlin.

‘Desendereçada,’ the opening track, immediately draws the listener into an alternate tropical universe marked by smooth samba drum machine beats, melodious flutes and a spoken word introduction. ‘Mais Amor’ carries the theme forward with a sinuous interplay between Lahav's flute, Chen's lush multi-layered instrumental arrangement and Annechini's sweetly seductive singing (in English and Portuguese). Sax, trombone and sitar lend an acid-jazz tinge to ‘Estelar’, while ‘Samba Moosh’ concludes the pleasurable journey with a distinctly EDM flourish.