Prize

Arto Lindsay

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 19, 1999)
• Original Release Date: October 19, 1999
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Righteous Babe
• ASIN: B00001T3GB
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #161,975 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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  Music > Indie Music > Latin Music > Latin Pop

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com's Best of 1999
With an abundance of nonchalance, Arto Lindsay opens Prize, his voice lazing over simple guitar strums, jumpy hand percussion, and more. Lindsay's shown himself a rich kaleidoscopic vortex, where vastly different music intermingles, creating a sleek display of his aesthetic appetite. He's obviously schooled in Os Mutantes and Gilberto Gil but he spikes every trace of his fellow Brazilian music makers with added layers originating in the No Wave and loft-jazz scenes. --Andrew Bartlett

Amazon.com
Arto Lindsay's a polynational multistylist of the first order. His Portuguese and English lyrics speak dually to the Brazilian Tropicalia movement and an experimental postpunk fluidity that never shies away from dropping jazzy horn licks amid scrabbling noise episodes. Prize is just that, a full-body and mind assault on singularity, grafting acoustic guitar elements à la Antonio Carlos Jobim into a stew of subtle horn charts, dual-language vocals, and thunking percussion. And then Lindsay delves, heart on sleeve, into a lovely ballad, always with a twist and yet always powerful in the way Tropicalia has consistently been. His fondness for electronics and samples comes to the fore severally, with squiggles and washes of synthetic sound knitting the music warmly but also challengingly. On par with Lindsay's best work, Prize makes dozens of bold statements by a man who seems to make only bold statements. --Andrew Bartlett

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Arto good, fire friend!, May 14, 2000

By	George T. Parsons (Nevada City, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Arto's pop-self comes as a surprise to those who witnessed his no-wave beginnings or even his later stuff in the earliest Golden Palomino's projects. The closest comparison here might be Caetano Veloso (who has repeatedly worked with Arto, most notably on '89's Estrangeiro ), but Arto's a much more limited vocalist, he uses his wispy-soulful song/talk really beautifully. Intoning, insinuating, suggesting, erotic or just dreamy-descriptive, his voice is the perfect instrument for these songs. Arto's craft is a subtle, shifting mix of Brazilian avant-pop, trip-hop, funk, hallucinatory folk-jazz, and soul balladry, all put together around a feeling of remarkable ease, as seductive as this is, it feels like the goal has already been reached, repeatedly, even exhaustively. Post-coital sex pop in a moody sci-fi rhythmic cultural mutation mode. His signing to Ani Difranco's label has me dreaming of a collaboration between the two of them, maybe an album of erotic duets, or just some remixing. Anyway Arto's pop work has been consistently excellent since his 80's work in the Ambitious Lovers.Also highly recommended are; O Corpo Sutil/The Subtle Body (`96), Mundo Civilizado (`97), Noon Chill (`98) all on Bar/None.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another amazing update of the bossa nova sound, November 15, 2002

By	Joe Sixpack -- Slipcue.com (...in Middle America) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

Brazilian-born, New York-based bossa nova pioneer Arto Lindsay is a marvel. This is his fourth full album of amazing "novo bossa nova" updates of the classic sound created in the late '50s by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Joao Gilberto -- Lindsay adds a New Yorker's sense of irony, dread and sexuality to the mix, as well as heavy doses of funk, soul and electronica, bubbling under the surface. This disc has some mildly jagged touches, like the dreamy/noisy guitar fill on "Ex-Preguica", which sounds like something straight off a Roy Montgomery album. I still have no idea what his lyrics are about -- I'm always too lulled by the music, and too lazy to read the lyric sheet -- but it really doesn't matter. The music is delicious. For me, the only sour note on here was on the art-rap on "Pode Ficar," which wasn't icky, just a bit boring. Otherwise, this album is ace bunny killer -- HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars simply enchanting..., May 4, 2000

By	Christopher Kingman "Philosopher / Revolutionary" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

i've been a big fan of arto lindsay for a while, mainly familiar with his work in DNA and the fabulous Arto Lindsay Trio record, "Aggregates 1-26." (i guess i'm the hopeless romantic sonic youth/glenn branca fan a previous reviewer mentioned.) i had been wary of his more recent work however, surmising from the reviews i had read and the odd song i heard on the radio that he had moved away from the noise-skronk guitar of his younger days that appealed to me so much. however, i saw this in a store when it came out last year, and on a whim, i picked it up. from the first listen i was completely amazed...

this album is rooted in two worlds, the brazilian tropicalia music of the '60s (and Arto's youth) and the New York underground of the past two decades. the music is a wonderful synthesis of these influences; it is passionate and sensual, but with a subtly powerful backbone that is incredibly affecting. in many places the music almost sounds like electronica, except that it's played by real musicians with real instruments, and not by a computer, which lends it a wholly organic feel. the mostly supple mood is only strengthened in the moments when the noisey undercurrent threatens to break through, most notably in "the prize" and "prefeelings." while i've always been fascinated by arto's guitar playing, which is wholly otherworldly, but fleetingly glimpsed on this album, i would be remiss if i didn't also mention his equally superior talents as a singer, lyricist and songwriter. the vocals complement the music perfectly, and the abstract poeticism of the lyrics manage to simultaneously sound intelligently self-concious and emotionally arresting. every track on this album is a stunning. as an added bonus, the last song, the beautiful "e ai esueco," features the talents of members of blonde redhead, firmly cementing this albums place in my heart as not only one of the top ten albums of '99, but all time as well.