Zeep is a band made up of Nina Miranda and Chris Franck along with other rotating band members including; Davide Giovannini, Davide Mantovani, Diabel Cissokho, Jason Yarde, Tristan Banks, Nikki Yeoh, Marcalzinho, Mike Lindup, Courtney Dennie, Kenny Lynch, Marcelo Jeneci da Silva, Mauro Berman, Mamadou Sarr, Elina Franck, Michael Mondesir, Laurie Lathem, James Stewart and Toni Economides.
Nina and Chris were founding members of two of the biggest selling and critically acclaimed Brazilian influenced acts of the past decade, Smoke City and Da Lata. Da Lata was signed to Chris Blackwell’s Palm Pictures Label and with Smoke City they had a huge international hit with ‘Underwater Love.’ The song was recorded in 1992 by Nina with Dj and musician Marc Brown. The song was an evoking and cinematic trip hop fusion. It went on to be featured in a successful Levi’s ad campaign and became a huge underground hit; it was a blessing for Nina as it caught the attention of various major record labels.
The musical chemistry between Nina and Chris is very fluid and natural for them so it is easy for them to make albums together; they recorded the debut album as Zeep for Far Out Recordings in 2007 named ‘Zeep.’ They said the songs were mostly dreamt up in their North London home, from jam sessions over a few years. As the songs started to grow and form they realised they would love to have input from their Brazilian musician friends so they flew out to Brazil to recruit their fellow ‘Zeepistas.’
Nina Miranda’s father is Brazilian and her mother is English, she was born in Brazil but educated in England, France and also Brazil. Even when she was younger she had a creative streak; she aspired to be an opera singer and then later studied art. This creativeness may have come from her father, visual artist, Luiz Aquila.
Chris Franck is a German born English musician, songwriter, producer and remixer basically described as a ‘multi-instrumentalist.’ He was born in Germany and has lived in the UK since the age of 6. The music he is passionate about is samba, bossa, afro, folk, funk and rock. He has collaborated with a huge variety of artists, co-writing and producing two albums with Da Lata and two albums with Smoke City. He also collaborated on Ernest Ranglin’s album ‘Modern Answers to Old Problems’ alongside Tony Allen, Courtney Pine and Denys Baptiste.
Zeep have played at major festivals all over the UK and Europe and have a dedicated following. They are currently promoting their current album ‘People & Things’ released by the label Crammed Discs in 2009.
Discography
People & Things – 2009 (Crammed Discs)
Nina Miranda and Chris Franck present Zeep – 2007 (Far Out Recordings)
