In the mid-2000s, over a four-year span, New York indie pop combo
Mosquitos delivered a well-regarded trio of LPs that appealingly married gentle bossa nova rhythms with quirky pop arrangements. The project began as a romantic courtship between Brazilian singer
Juju Stulbach and American multi-instrumentalist
Chris Root, who later recruited his friend keyboardist and programmer
Jon Marshall Smith to complete the lineup. Following 2006's III,
Mosquitos fell into a lengthy hiatus as geography and circumstances separated the band's contributors, with
Stulbach and
Root settling into a new life in Mexico and
Smith heading to the mountains of North Carolina.
Stulbach and
Root's musical narrative continued in duo form as
Undersea Poem while
Smith became involved mixing and mastering projects for other acts. After a decade apart, the itch to once again collaborate took hold and the bandmembers began a long-distance musical conversation that eventually took them back to New York to work with producer and arranger
Michael Leonhart. Autobiographical by its very nature,
Mosquitos' fourth album,
Mexican Dust, feels less like a comeback than it does a checking-in of sorts. There's an affable everyday quality to the band's songwriting that helps it come across simply as a snapshot of where the three friends are in 2017. More texturally varied than much of their earlier work,
Mexican Dust veers from wistful odes like "Far Like Stars" and "Someone You Love" to bright, lush synth pop with horn arrangements courtesy of
Leonhart. Themes of displacement, both geographical ("This Town") and emotional ("Island in the Bathtub"), appear throughout the album, which itself tends to feel a little lost and disconnected at times. Still, there's a warmth and humor to
Mosquitos' brand of pop, and this fourth chapter in their story has plenty to offer. ~ Timothy Monger