Prize

1	Ondina 4:01
2	The Prize 3:58
3	Pode Ficar 4:13
4	Prefeelings 4:51
5	Modos 4:18
6	Ex-Preguica 4:36
7	Unsure 3:31
8	Resemblances 4:34
9	O Nome Dela 3:42
10	Tone 4:19
11	Interior Life 4:10
12	E Ai Esqueco 2:56

Barnes & Noble

From no-wave skronk guitarist to casual sambista, Arto Lindsay continues a journey into the music of his youth that has been as unexpected as it has been beautiful. Since his excellent SUBTLE BODY in 1996, Lindsay has found more and more fluid ways of merging the earthy dip and sway of Brazilian music with the angular barbs of avant-garde jazz and noise-pop. But as a missionary's son raised in the tropics, Lindsay's no stranger to the push-pull of desire and taboo, sweetness and poison. There's always a sinister shadow behind the lightness of his soft, engaging vocals (often in Portuguese) and the jarring beauty of dramatically contrasting and textured music. Brittle imagery decorates skeletal arrangements: Arto sings of cuts and scratches, reason and lust; snares crackle behind him, a guitar slashes, cool horns sigh in bossa nova harmonies. PRIZE might be Lindsay's most singular exploration into Brazilian influences -- working once again with bassist Melvin Gibbs and producer/multi-instrumentalist Andres Levin, Lindsay manages to come across as tropical even when not dipping into samba rhythms, and the lightest bossa moments have a dissolute urban cast. Already a significant influence on Brazilian artists such as Caetano Veloso and Vinicius Cantuaria, Lindsay crafts rewarding cutting-edge music that cuts deep, indeed. Mark Schwartz

All Music Guide

Arto Lindsay has come a long way since his early days as one of the prime architects of downtown New York's no wave sound, a period when he played untuned guitar in the noise trio DNA and served as the first vocalist for the Golden Palominos. Since then he's been a fairly ubiquitous guest artist and has pursued his own interest in the music of Brazil (where he was raised), as well as taking a detour into slightly avant-garde dance-pop with the group Ambitious Lovers. His solo work in recent years has gotten a bit mushy, perhaps, but Prize finds him tightening things up. The drum'n'bass textures that lay on the surface of his last album like laminate are more fully integrated this time out: "Prefeelings" combines a fractured breakbeat with salsa-fied acoustic guitar and saxophones; "Resemblances" smears subtle intimations of electronic mayhem under Latin percussion and guitar, while Lindsay sings lines like "Stay calm/Keep calm/Let the room outgrow the walls" in a dry, laconic voice. None of this is anywhere near as tuneful as his work with Ambitious Lovers, but there's a maturity to it that will keep you coming back for more. There are also a few good blasts of detuned guitar, and that's always a good thing. Rick Anderson