I saw Paira open up for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah last month at a club outside the center of Sao Paulo. I would not have paid the money to see the latter band, but Paira kept creeping up on my algorithm, and I found myself gravitating back to their ultra-cool electro-shoegaze, so I jumped on it. An unassuming duo, Clara Borges and André Pádua look more like siblings than band members. In the cavernous club, it seemed like the two would get sucked up just by the sheer intensity of it, but once the electronic glitches and pulsating bass drop and the two kids from Belo Horizonte channel their innermost Portu-gaze with sparkling, noisy guitars, you get to see what makes them so special. Their music is thoughtful, yet raw, a fascinating example of the kind of energy pulsating within the Brazilian underground.
The first song that exposed me to the band was “Preciso ir”. Featuring the shimmering guitars of Borges and Pádua over an electronica breakbeat and synths that barely propel the song forward, it’s a slice of Brazilian shoegaze that occupies its own unique niche in the Brazilian underground. The duo’s laconic, dream-like vocals float atop the noise in a way that showcases the beauty versus the beast, the never-ending internal battles we all face.
The fledgling band has had relatively a quick ascent within the wildly creative shoegaze-adjacent scene developing in Brazil. With local veterans like Terno Rei and newcomers such as Paira and terraplana– the latter having released one of the best albums of 2025 with natura– Brazilian indie-gaze seems to be having a moment. The history of the band is wrapped up in this ascension:
‘André and I met at a show of the band he had at the time, Godofredo, about four years ago and we started talking and then started talking about music. André produces electronic music and I’ve always been into guitars. We were trying to find a solution to combine electronic music and guitars! We started Paira about two years ago, we would create a riff and then create a rhythm on top. On the first EP (EP01), most of the songs were completely structured by André. I created some guitar bases and he added the magic of electronic music. Except for song “19”, which is entirely my own work.’
The band has certainly found their own solution to combining electronic music and guitars, and their first EP, EP01, is a foundational example of the direction the band is going as they work on releasing their second EP later this year. EP01 is filled with frenetic breakbeats and percussion that glitches and pounds its way through twenty minutes of dream pop. Songs like “Musica Lenta” and “O Fio” are aggressively noisy, the guitars swarming like angry bees over rhythmic regurgitations of angst and anxiety.
“Como um Rio” is a languid exploration of the eternal cycle that typifies the self-doubt we all struggle with when young, but is especially poignant in modern day Brazil, where the void between the haves and have-nots seems to be brutally exposed in the bright light of the South American sun. The band’s songwriting, while not blatantly explicit about conveying these messages, is an exploration of combining the ugly with the beautiful. It’s acknowledging that these two things often exist at once, and it’s sometimes impossible to extricate one from the other. When asked about how the band approaches their songwriting, Borge writes, ‘The process is quite varied, but it usually starts with an idea that comes from a guitar riff that André or I write. Sometimes it starts from breaks and drum samples, or sometimes we also make synthesized guitar riffs that we then transpose to the real guitar. The idea of starting with synthesizers has to do with trying to get away from the forms and ‘vices’ that we have in our way of playing guitar.’
A lot of what makes Brazilian music so exciting- and Paira is definitely a part of this- is that it seems to continually grow and expand in unexpected ways. When you come from a country that has such a rich, cultural history in terms of music and can still look abroad in admiration and awe at what the more dominant Western cultures are doing in the same milieu, you are bound to produce something wildly original. The band’s influences are gloriously eclectic. According to Pádua :
‘In terms of music, we are inspired by bands and artists such as Number Girl, American Football, Clube da Esquina, Charlie Brown Jr, Aphex Twin, and Four Tet. Lately, I have been obsessed with the Philadelphia music scene. It’s a city I know nothing about (except for Philly cheese steak and the square with the monument written on it, where many skateboarding videos have been filmed), but they have a very rich scene with artists such as Alex G, They Are Gutting A Body of Water, fullbody2 and Hooky. These artists greatly influenced our EP02, which has a more ‘raw’ and indie aspect.’
It’s that last part that really gets me. It’s not enough to find your influences in a Japanese indie band or a Brazilian folk artist. You also have to consider the obscure urban influences of the worst sports town in America. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, and that’s what makes the art that Paira produces so magical: it’s borne of the desire to create something and put it out in the ether for the world to hear. And if you like it, then that’s more than enough. (And, trust me, you’ll like it!)
You can support the band by buying EP01 on Balaclava Records on their Bandcamp. You can also follow the Brazilian artists on their Instagram.
Paira is:
Clara Borges – Guitars, vocals
André Pádua: Guitars, vocals, programmed drums and electronic glitches
