Where I played them
Smoke City. London trio, Nina Miranda on vocals with Marc Brown and Chris Franck, active from 1994 to 2002. Acid jazz and trip-hop mixed with Brazilian samba and bossa nova, and Miranda sings partly in Portuguese. 'Underwater Love' was written by Miranda and Brown and first came out in 1995 on Ritas Records. Under the rainforest sounds it samples Luiz Bonfa's 'Bahia Soul' and James Brown's 'Mother Popcorn'. It broke big in 1997 when Levi's put it in their 'Mermaids' commercial, directed by Michel Gondry, and it went to No. 4 in the UK. It opens their debut album, Flying Away (1997), which Slant later ranked among the greatest trip-hop albums. A second album, Heroes of Nature, followed in 2001, and the band split in 2002.
From the notes for Episode 14 · fact-checked Oct 4, 2026.
