Sweet Earth Spells: Liana Flores + Juliana Chahayed at Fairmount Theatre

It’s the eve of Libra season and there’s no better way to celebrate than by attending a Liana Flores concert, queen of Venusian themes: flowers, trees, dewdrops and rain, softness, friendship, romance as a way of life. 

Liana Flores is an earth star quickly rising. She’s been touring with her album Flower of the soul, released June 28th on Verve. The album is a heavenly, lush offering that meditates on the natural world, love, release, and transformation. The 25-year-old British-Brazilian songwriter is inspired by bossa nova and ‘60s folk and is incredibly faithful to honoring both traditions. Her references of Gal Costa and Caetano Veloso, Nick Drake and Vashti Bunyan, are beautifully present in her work.

    The show is at Fairmount Theatre, where just five days before I had seen the Rat Queen of Castle Rat slay the Reaperess and spit blood on a room full of metalheads. The venue is practically unrecognizable now. Lazy circles of orange light dance on the walls like a ‘60s TV intro. Astrud Gilberto plays on the speakers, it feels like I’m entering a lounge with a crackling fireplace and an old stereo. Girls in long skirts with bows in their hair gently chatter, some sit cross-legged in front of the stage. Her audience seems young, many looking to be around 15-20. This makes sense as the virality of her song “rises the moon” on Tiktok is what kicked off her career and got her signed with Verve. I suspect she may be responsible for introducing many young people on the Internet to bossa nova standards and weird 60s psych-folk, which warms my old soul. 

     Juliana Chahayed opens the show with her boyfriend Jonathan Huber. She introduces the first song, written about her first Tamagotchi, to which the crowd responds “Aww.” Chahayed plays guitar and sings in a high, soft voice over a video game beat, with Huber hypnotizing on the keys. The crowd is immediately charmed, smiling and swaying. She sings about animals and collecting trinkets, sometimes using a fuzz-ifying phone mic.

    Between sets, someone in the audience shakes ass to a Stan Getz solo. There is a friendliness and comfort in the room, people are softly talking and laughing. When you’re gathered by a mutual affinity for odes to flowers, streams, and butterflies, there is a sense of immediate romantic comradery. We’re all lovers here. 

    Then Flores comes out in a long orange dress. The crowd bursts alive at the sight of her and people move in close to the stage, though very politely. She is soft-spoken and graceful, deeply genuine. She is accompanied by a rhythm section who are incredibly tight while also being incredibly chilled. They all play effortlessly, the bass is deep like wet earth, the drummer accents with chimes. I immediately feel like I’m in a forest, like these are spells of the earth come to life. Flores’ voice is delicate and airy, capable of scaling to dazzling heights. When she sings in her lower register her voice becomes a whisper that pulls us all in closer, really reminiscent of Gal Costa and Elis Regina, even reminding me of Joni Mitchell at times with its playful loops and dives.

    The band plays songs from the new album, from her previous EPs recently and The Water’s Fine!, as well as two covers: “Light Flight” by Pentangle which makes the musical talent of the group unmistakably clear, transforming the scene into a madly alive medieval marketplace, and also Tom Jobim’s “Wave.” Flores prefaces “Wave” by asking if there are any Brazilians in the audience, and when several people wave their hands she lights up and exclaims that there hadn’t been at some previous shows. “Obrigada, gente,” she says after her beautiful rendition of the bossa nova classic. At the end of the show, she asks the crowd for some French translations and repeats back tentatively, “Merci, tout le monde! Bonsoir!” Two small curtsies, a heart with her hands, and that marks the end of the sweetest evening. I exit the theatre sighing, feeling like she has bestowed on us each an armful of flowers, fragrant and sentimental.