Brazilian Girls came together a few years ago via the then-burgeoning live electronica scene at New York’s trendy Nublu nightclub. No member is Brazilian, and the only girl is singer Sabina Sciubba, who spews stream-of-consciousness lyrics in five languages over the tantalizing soundscapes of Murphy, drummer Aaron Johnston, and keyboardist Didi Gutman.

Murphy’s playing is accessible and fun, without sacrificing rhythmic acumen or harmonic savvy. “I lay the foundation and interact melodically when it’s time. My goal is to create organic bass lines, stripping an idea down to its most basic level and reintroducing the whole theme as the music dictates. Still, I have to be careful not to be so rhythmically and harmonically complex that I lose the main idea.” Brazilian Girls’ extensive use of loops and other synth-derived electronics further complicates Murphy’s gig. “Sometimes the synths are too busy and we try to simplify them; other times, we’ll deal with it and play less.”

“All About Us” shows how Murphy contends with Brazilian Girls’ dense sonic landscape, and it captures his developmental bass philosophy well. The tune begins with a cute cabaret-style cue, shown in the first two bars of Ex. 1. The groove begins in bar 3 with some rhythmic sleight of hand. “It’s similar to the main groove, but it’s a three-bar phrase,” Jesse says. The result is a sense that the one shifts, coming around every fourth bar. This phrase prevails until the vocals enter, finding Murphy squaring up the groove against the 4/4 feel, as in bars 1 and 2 of Ex. 2. The primary bass theme begins on the “a” of beat four, but the high-octave bounces and slippery 16th-note climbs to F evolve throughout the track, showing Murphy’s knack for sly variation.

Murphy adds some fat for the chorus, as in Ex. 3. Unlike the sparse and bubbly verse groove, Murphy’s quarter-notes lend the section a denser, more direct feel—particularly effective as Sciubba wistfully intones “all about us” over dreamy synth pads. As in the verse, Murphy swings the main groove around a 16th-note fulcrum: The lines in bars 2 and 4 are typical of Murphy’s varied approach throughout the track. A short musical interlude follows the chorus (Ex. 4), and Murphy plays one of the track’s coolest licks as an unaccompanied turnaround to the second verse (Ex. 5).

It’s tough to nail solid-but-funky 16ths and lock into a hypnotic pocket brimming with creative energy. How does Jesse do it? “My physical approach comes from François Rabbath’s book Nouvelle Technique de la Contrebasse. Relaxation is a big aspect, but another is figuring out every way to play the most basic things. It’s like a marathon runner—he won’t only run 26 miles. Sometimes he’ll run a lot farther, so that it’s not such a big deal to run a marathon.”