Scene and Heard – CCCXXXI : Hummingbird – Daxuva & Nina Miranda (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Pop music doesn’t have to be big and boisterous, bombastic and overblown. I mean, it can be if you like that sort of thing, it’s just that for me at least, the more interesting sonic creations are often found when such musical building blocks are spread thinnest, when a song seems built more of texture and nuance than groove and beat. Tracks like Hummingbird illustrate my point perfectly.

It’s a track so opaque, so gossamer light, so transient that it is almost impossible to assign it a genre, though if you pushed me (the most) ambient pop should suffice for now. It infuses together soulful, jazz echoes, whispered vocals, half-heard electronica and sultry musical touches into the most chilled of deliveries. It gently brushes the 90’s trip-hop sound and the global adventures of bands such as Dead Can Dance, flirts with clubland chill outs and the soundtracks to art house movies and blowing like a warm musical wind across many landscapes and many different cultures.

Gloriously understated, wonderfully warm, brilliantly evocative. Job done.