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Underground > Radio & Music >

Cansei de Ser Sexy a.k.a. CSS a.k.a. My New Favourite Band

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Regrettable Juvenilia

22:33 / 11.07.06

Below is what I said about Cansei de Ser Sexy in the "New Bands 2006" thread - now they have an album out internationally I think they deserve a thread of their own. Actually, that's not why they deserve a thread of their own - they deserve a thread of their own because they are fucking AWESOME.

Cansei de Ser Sexy - a.k.a. CSS (or even Tired of Being Sexy, as their name translates in English). Five girls, one guy, from Sao Paulo. You can hear a couple of their tunes on that site - 'Let's Make Love & Listen To Death From Above', which is the new single and about fifty times better than all actual material by Death From Above 1979, and 'This Month Day 10' (deceptively sweet, until the singer starts going on about breaking people's faces and getting their blood everywhere) are two highlights of their new album. Two particularly awesome things about 'Let's Make Love...', apart from the title: i) when you realise she's singing "wine, then bed, then more, then again", and ii) the bits where it suddenly switches pace and turns into a Goldfrappy glam stomp.

Okay, just to add a third thing: I've since become convinced that this song is about a long-distance relationship - specifically the brief moments when the two protagonists get to meet in the flesh and fuck, but there's stuff about sending each other music in the meantime... CSS famously all met through the internet, which is surely becoming more and more common for bands as well as people, and they claim the web is more their hometown/'scene' than Sao Paolo is. How true that is I'm not sure, but I do know that 'Let's Make Love...' feels like a song for a generation (stop me if I sound wanky) for whom meeting friends and collaborators and lovers on the internet no longer seems strange.

If I keep talking about individual songs from the album I could go on all night, so for now, let me point you to 'Music Is My Hot Hot Sex', which you can get here for a limited time. I think it's the best thing on the album (right now I think that, it might change), and one of the most perfect songs I've heard in a long time.

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

23:57 / 11.07.06

And it's still my favourite song on the album! I really fucking love this song, and I fear that is about as articulate as I might be on it... but I'll carry on anyway. I just, I mean, y'know? It amazes me in how it encapsulates how I feel about music at certain points in my life (you know when you get a song and it's just like, "this is EXACTLY it" and fits everything you're feeling at a certain moment).

And yet, it's more than that, because the song itself is about that! While being one of those songs! I cannot quite express how that makes me giddy with happiness. The lyrics, the sentiment and the music itself on this song... well, it would be enough to make me cry like a Dr Who fan if it didn't make me need to dance around with happy.

And I think that's one of the greatest strengths of CSS, the things they want to put across, they put them across SO. WELL. (I'm especially fond of "Art Bitch", which is like a knockout blow in rightness). Almost so well you don't even notice until it clicks. A moment of subtlety or humour and the context of the whole song falls in to place, adding a whole other layer of awesome to already excellent music.

I described them once as "like Le Tigre if all their songs were as good as deceptacon", and while I actually thought that might sell Le Tigre a bit short... I actually think CSS are better than that description.

13:24 / 12.07.06

Two particularly awesome things about 'Let's Make Love...'

Yes, and you didn't even mention the theremin (or theremin soundalike)... This is good.

18:21 / 12.07.06

God, yes, CSS is the most fun music I've listened to in ever. So positive and upbeat and dancy and straightforward. Such an unlikely band, too - I really like Sub Pop for signing them.

On that they became famous over the internet - maybe they are a better example of the internet music revolution etc. (if there is such a thing) than The Arctic Monkeys, because they really seem to come from nowhere (is there a big DFA-loving art-disco scene in Brazil that I've missed?) unlike the four British boys with guitars. In any case, CSS is a lot better.

Matthew Fluxington

13:04 / 13.07.06

One of the thing that really grates on me about a lot of the bad or middling reviews that I've been seeing is how people are routinely dismissing them as being shallow or trendy, etc - it's rather like how pretty confident fashionable cool girls are routinely hated on by jealous women and misogynistic dudes. But it just drives me nuts cos out of the HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of records that I've heard this year, this is one of the few that positively overflows with sincere emotion, goodwill, and critical thought.

They make references to pop, junk culture, the internet, bands - people take that as being stupid and shallow, but they are projecting, because it's really just them setting up a context. "Meeting Paris Hilton" isn't about loving or hating Paris Hilton but rather what it's like to come face to face with ultimate vapidity and privilege and trying to interact on its terms rather than attack it out of spite and arrogance. As Johnny says, "Art Bitch" is a pretty right on slam of a very specific sort of artist that's been popping up all over in this decade in galleries, at art schools, and on the interet. I love Tom Breihan, but when he says that that song is a rip off of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, I have to call BULLSHIT cos it's like the total effing opposite of that song, and that band. Have you ever seen Nick Zinner's photo book? HE'S A FUCKING ART BITCH. But you know, you use the word "art" and already you've got more than half the room talking out of their ass cos they just have no fucking clue.

But even more than that, you've got songs like "Patins" and "Let's Make Love" that really cut to the core of a crush, that rush of lust and confusion and fear and joy. I especially love the tossed off lines in "Let's Make Love" - "you're so talented, I'm in love!" "you come to show me your mad love!" "come and erase me take me with you!" and ESPECIALLY "you knew my ideas when they were still in my head!" I mean, c'mon, I can't be the only one who relates to stuff like this - this is normal, but articulated in this really sort of profound and emotionally complicated way. And I think Joe is dead right about it being a long distance thing too.

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:06 / 13.07.06

(I'm especially fond of "Art Bitch", which is like a knockout blow in rightness).

Have you heard both versions of 'Art Bitch'? The one on the album is different from the MP3 I first heard a month or so ago... I'm not so fond of the album version, it sounds less like bratty punk-grrl-pop and more like, I dunno, stoner rock or something, the guitars are wankier and it seems more... slow, although the vocals are the same speed. It lacks momentum somehow.

Mind you, that's balanced by some of the songs on the album being improved by slightly different production/arrangements - 'Fuck Off Is Not The Only Thing You Have To Show' and 'Meeting Paris Hilton' both sound a little bit 'fuller' and better for it.

I'm pretty sure I've heard two versions of 'Alala' as well (the earlier version being the one that has the black and white video with them all looking UNGLAUBLICH HOTT and playing/dancing in a club), and I can't choose between them - the difference is quite slight, but it sounds as if the 'original' version used less live instruments and more programming? This seems to be an arc for several bands, that as they learn to play more/better, their sound changes - not necessarily for better, or worse, depending on who you ask. I remember talking about this a lot with regard to the Scissor Sisters. And these days what with yr internet and whatever, it's much more likely that people will hear early/unofficial versions of stuff... There's probably a thread in this. Maybe. If anyone cares.

I described them once as "like Le Tigre if all their songs were as good as deceptacon", and while I actually thought that might sell Le Tigre a bit short... I actually think CSS are better than that description.

I think that does sell Le Tigre a bit short, but I'm aware I'm a keener fan of Le Tigre than many. Bits of the CSS sound on this album actually remind me more of Sleater-Kinney: the guitar part on 'Off The Hook' is very Carrie Brownstein, I think.

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:11 / 13.07.06

"Meeting Paris Hilton" isn't about loving or hating Paris Hilton but rather what it's like to come face to face with ultimate vapidity and privilege and trying to interact on its terms rather than attack it out of spite and arrogance. As Johnny says, "Art Bitch" is a pretty right on slam of a very specific sort of artist that's been popping up all over in this decade in galleries, at art schools, and on the interet.

This is interesting, 'cos while I generally agree with you about CSS, isn't this almost like saying "don't worry, they're being critical of shallowness/pop culture/hipsters"? Whereas I would argue that both songs singled out here are much more ambiguous than that. 'Meeting Paris Hilton' seems to me to be about wanting to have nasty hatesex with someone, and the lust is as real and important to the song as the hate. 'Art Bitch' is satire, but like all (the best) satire it's also partly a celebration - CSS are artists too, remember.

Matthew Fluxington

14:28 / 13.07.06

We're both projecting like crazy on this, but I really really really don't think there's all that much satire in "Art Bitch." Humor, definitely. Satire, eh, not really.

Matthew Fluxington

14:37 / 13.07.06

They are artists, but they are not the same kind of artists. They are most definitely making a value judgement in "Art Bitch."

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:48 / 13.07.06

I dunno how you're defining satire but "humorous song in a first person character with an implied value judgment against that character" seems pretty much textbook satire to me.

Difference between the two types of artists = ones you like and ones you don't, surely! Which is fair enough I guess. For my own part I have to admit that while I can never encounter the Daniel Clowes view of contemporary art without suspicion, the last time I attended a private view I did come away rolling my eyes a little.

My overall point I suppose is that I don't think one needs to say anything to the "they're trendy shallow hipsters!" criticism other than "go fuck yourself and your fucking strawman you anti-creative swine!", but I guess that's kind of irrational. Still, "don't worry, they're being mean about hipsters!" feels like a concession.

The amazing "you knew my ideas when they were still in my head!" to me is great partly because it does celebrate creativity, and perhaps particularly a certain kind of dilletantism creativity (the ideas are still in her head!). It's the flipslide of Le Tigre's 'Tres Bien':

"when you're walking down the street
no one sees a V.I.P, i.e
genius artist of our time
well I'll be the first in line to say
I get it, I get it, I get it..."

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:55 / 13.07.06

I should add that I've not actually read any of these pieces criticising CSS for being shallow hipsters, although it seems inevitable to me that they are out there given all the things I love about this band that stupid defeated misanthropic people will inevitably hate, and if I had done maybe I'd feel a need to construct a different defence of CSS...

17:58 / 13.07.06

is there a big DFA-loving art-disco scene in Brazil that I've missed?

I guess not really, Cansei de Ser Sexy is quite a unique case, even in São Paulo underground music (which is pretty wild, I'll tell you that). They have been playing in bars and pubs around here for a few years, never taking themselves too seriously, but only now they are getting the recognition they deserve, thanks mostly to the internet.

I've attended one of their gigs once a while back, before they start becoming a "hit hip band", but I have to confess I don't remember much of the show (too drunk, too high, and the stage area in the pub was way too crowded so I decided it would be a better use of my time to hit the pool tables with my buddies)

Another great band from around here you should know about is called "Funk Como Le Gusta". If you can find a mp3 of any of their songs, check it out.

18:41 / 13.07.06

dude, i reckon you should start a thread all about your local scene.
i reckon it is criminally under represented over here.

fuck, the only shit i ever heard about the brazilian music scene was from a skate mag.
big brother, for hosoi's sake.
they like their metal, the BB boys, and south america is full of it, apparently.
apart form that, all i know about the scene is that vegan punks have a hard time finding restaurants that dont serve a meat side salad with everything.

i would be super-jazzed to hear about the scene from an insider.

CSS are certainly a good start, and i wonder what else the country holds.
loving the first track on the myspace, so far all i have heard.
maybe more later.

21:22 / 13.07.06

Dude, to be honest, I'm ashamed to say I've being out of my own local scene for a while now. But I'll look it up, do some research and get some feedback to you.

Is it too complicated to open a myspace account, and post mp3 copied from iTunes in it? It would help.

22:06 / 13.07.06

btw, this is not the right thread for it, but I have not find one that is, so I'll take advantage of the momentum:

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL DAY OF ROCK TO US ALL! (It's almost over now, but I just remembered)

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:24 / 15.07.06

You know, they sound a bit like the electroclash Mouldy Peaches...

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:47 / 15.07.06

I'm hoping you're not saying that as if it were a bad thing! They're a lot less shambolic than the Moldy Peaches, thankfully (in the end I found the can-we-really-be-arsed vibe of the Moldy Peaches meant I stopped going back to that album, and I suspect it might be why they haven't made another one.

21:48 / 15.07.06

Actually I think Haus is pretty close to why I'm underwhelmed by this album (although I would say funk carioca rather than electroclash). I think there's a lot of really great songs trying to get out here, but its like they're not willing to go all the way and hide behind a kind of wobbly, shambolic irony. Dear CSS, please get courage of convictions.

I mean I like it okay, I just wish they didn't seem mildly embarrassed by what they're capable of.

03:58 / 16.07.06

DON'T MISS Cansei on tour with DJ Diplo and Bonde do Rolê, they'll rock your world, as they've rocked mine. I love them all and Adriano from CSS is a friend [*coff*namedrop*coff*], so I can't recommend them enough:

http://myspace.com/diplo
[this is the who produced some of M.I.A.'s best tunes and half of the Hollertronix night]

http://myspace.com/bondedorole
[amazing baile funk + rock trio]

and http://myspace.com/canseidesersexy

this was Bonde at the night I co-produce, two Saturdays ago: http://flickr.com/photos/popscene/tags/08julho2006/

American/Canadian tour dates:
http://canseidesersexy.com

more mp3s:
http://www.tramavirtual.com.br/artista.jsp?id=2446

[+ emule, soulseek etc - don't be guilty, CSS' debút album in Brazil came with a bonus empty CD-R so you could hand it out to friends, no kidding]

not a crazy DFA-discopunk scene here, but lots of good sounds all around. I might start a thread on that, full of links to the good stuff.

D Terminator XXXIII

09:35 / 16.07.06

I love 'em too -- and Hector, I've been playing with the idea of creating a thread specifically for introducing local acts with the intention of spreading their music around the globe. What with Barbelith members hailing from UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Latin America and Scandinavia, and the profileration of ysi, I think we could create something worthwhile.

Give me 'til tonight, and I'll attempt something.

16:01 / 16.07.06

cool, I'll have a look later tonight or early tomorrow.

17:55 / 16.07.06

Cansei @ Youtube

amongst a lot of interviews and live gigs captured by digicams, you can watch the official videos for "Alala", "This Month, Day 10", "Off The Hook", and "Let's Make Love..."

12:55 / 17.07.06

Flyboy, I'm sorry for all of the unfair and libellous things I've ever said about you in my head. This album is brilliant fun, and I have you to thank for turning me onto it. I caught the video for 'Let's make love...' on 120 minutes at the weekend and I loved it so much I ran out the next day to buy the album.

This is pretty much exactly what I've been looking for for ages. Cool as fuck, sexy like I hardly ever hear, and totally fun-loving. Plus great bleeps and bloops and music. Plus a seriously hott singer... hell yes, this is a good band. I love the lyrics too, they seem to be playing with that whole 'scenester'/too-cool-for-school vibe and they manage to excel in their shallowness as well as having a pretty distinct personality of their own and standing up to repeated listens. It's a bit like art dressed up as trashy-throwaway-synth-pop. I think. I'm not too hot when it comes to describing this type of music...

Following on what you were saying earlier, I much prefer the new version of Art Bitch because of it's 'stoner-ness' (nice catch there btw, I think it's the muddier guitars that do it). The album sounds a lot chunkier than the older tracks that you put up for us, which I like. I dig the old-punk-style vocals and retro electronica, but I thought that the old version of art bitch was just a little shrill, and I think the album's production does a great job of balancing its sounds so it never gets too trebble-y or annoying.

Anyway, now that I beleive you (I got Morningwood too, goddamn that's an awesome band), what else is good? We need a Flyboy recommends.... thread. And where abouts do you find out about all this cool music before the rest of us? Have you got a 'Flyboy' that tunes you in too?

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:23 / 17.07.06

I've got a couple. Fluxblog, I Love Music (warning: as a discussion forum it makes a very good shark tank), It Came From The Sea club nights when I'm not so hopelessly, awfully drunk that I mistake random people for members of semi-famous bands...

03:22 / 20.07.06

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=csstv

tour... "videolog"? just [bizarrelly] fooling around.

Regrettable Juvenilia

09:24 / 01.08.06

CSS UK tour dates!

02-09 Nottinghan
Stealth
-
03-09 Glasgow
Indian Summer festival
-
04-09 York
Fibbers
-
05-09 Manchester
Roadhouse
-
06-09 Leeds
Favasham
-
08-09 London
Adventures Close To Home @ 93 Feet East
-
09-09 Brighton
Audio
-
10-09 London
DingWalls

Tickets are available from Ticketweb for the London shows at least - I've already booked some for the 93 Feet East show...

11:28 / 01.08.06

got the album yesterday (following the recommendation of this thread) and have listenend to it 3 times by now.
good stuff! not all of the tracks (some are a bit yawny) but the majority of it is really good.

it does remind me a lot of W.I.T., though.

All Acting Regiment

12:16 / 01.08.06

What a band. Her voice is amazing, it reminds me of when I was at adventure camp as a kid and my canoe capsized in sewage, and there was this Spanish student who was a group leader thing on her gap year, and she gave me her towel and explained to me about vodka. And, I think it would even if I hadn't had that experience, if you get me?

12:20 / 04.08.06

Someone just e-mailed this CSS's review:

So, which one of them you think should be more tired of being sexy? I vote for the girl in cowboy boots

Cowboy Scientist

01:42 / 06.08.06

I'm the only one that hears that lil' tune from the first stage of Wonder Boy in the background music in "Lets Make Love and Listen to Death From Above"?

11:16 / 09.08.06

Cansei is heading for the West Coast [where they'll shoot a new video for a heavier version of Alala], then Europe! wa-hoo! then US again, opening for Ladytron.

it's interesting to note there's differences to the album versions released in Brazil and US. here we had a full album [with a recordable blank CD included] + an EP that's sold separetely.

the Sup Pop album is a mash up of both. there are some key tracks missing that you can find at your favourite p2p device, such as the dance-floor hit "Superafim" and the one used at the Sim's game, "Computer Heat" [there are both English and Simlish versions of this one].

12:33 / 09.08.06

'm the only one that hears that lil' tune from the first stage of Wonder Boy in the background music in "Lets Make Love and Listen to Death From Above"?

!

Regrettable Juvenilia

18:57 / 09.08.06

I am really tempted to try and see them when I'm in New York, as well as the London show for which I already have tickets...

10:57 / 15.08.06

I've slept on this, cos I'm not that fussed about CSS, but Bonde do Role (I only just found out), knocked a Favela Strikes Back shaped hole in my dissertation over Easter; anyone got crash space after the London gig?

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:40 / 17.08.06

Which London gig? I don't think Bonde Do Role are playing at either, but I may be misunderstanding you...

Did there used to be seven people in CSS?

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