Le Jardin (The Garden) is a soft electro-pop album created in collaboration by Anglo-Brazilian singer Nina Miranda and Brazilian producer Daxuva (Pedro Ferraz) – the debut record under the Daxuva moniker. The album sets itself within a collision; on one side you see the soft, sensual aspects of a garden, and on the other side is a technological world dominated by soft synths, intricate rhythms and a melange of vocal techniques.
Miranda incorporates many vocal variations within the album and within songs. This ranges from soft quiet melodies to speaking and leaping to harder, driven vocal parts. Sometimes the music serves to accompany her vocal pieces, other times they come apart – still working together, but with the impression of jarring; employed to keep intrigue about their music. Her talented vocals appear in both English and in Portuguese, and the language switches happen in between songs as well.
The beats are well placed with pleasurable melody changes, though musical changes do not take much effect on the song structure. The album also breaks into energetic moments such as the song ‘Gonna Make The World Better’, which has bird sounds in the background. The result of so many computer-added effects in the album is one of light surreal-ness: a garden, but not a real garden; freedom but not real freedom. With ‘Exist’, the song turns chords into delays and swells with a mix of instruments and timbres. The drums, although not out of place, serve this purpose throughout the album, casually driving the songs and giving them relaxed but pushed purpose.
The calmness of the music is never quite settled, though it is intriguing to see into the mind of Daxuva’s musical choices. The songs are sweet and computer generated, and these are well edited with nice effects, as well as Miranda’s flowing, serenading vocals over the top. Although there are links to this concept of a garden, rather than being a concept album it feels like the connection of two artists starting a collaborative process. Although it is polished it is also cautious in the aims it tries to achieve.