Music is our imaginary friend...
I still remember when 'Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above' first invaded my MTV. With its dancing skyscrapers, plastic colours, groovy guitar beats churning out a song about sex and a certain Toronto dance punk duo, it really was love at first sight.
Emerging from Sao Paulo, Brazil, back in 2003 with a mash up of new wave and electro-pop coupled with a blurry noise of damaged guitars, CSS grabbed the public's gaze with their free-spirited, youthful and energetic vibe: singing songs in English with a thick Brazilian accent and crafting lyrics that were catchy, sarcastic and real funny all at the same time.
These art pop masters have not have it all easy, however. Their second album 'Donkey' did not receive great reviews and after touring heavily the band were ready to go back to Brazil. After a three year hiatus, CSS are back with 'La Liberacion' featuring collaborations with Ratatat and Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream. Experimenting with a more electronic sound which seems to juggle Blondie and !!!, CSS are about to push dance-pop further than it’s ever been before.
CSS - Hits Me Like A Rock by Music As Usual
'La Liberacion' seems to be more stylistically similar to 'Cansei De Ser Sexy' rather than 'Donkey'. Do you feel like this is the type of music you are most comfortable with?
We feel comfortable usually when we do things we feel like, and all the albums we did were a mere reflection of what was going on with us when we did them. In that sense, our mood when we were doing 'La Liberacion' was closer to ‘Cansei de Ser Sexy’ than ‘Donkey’.
'Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above' was a massive hit. Do you find it hard to live up to that?
We only feel this was a major hit when we play it live. Of course we would love to have a song that reached so many people like 'Let's Make Love', but we know it's a hard thing to do, and we don't try to emulate that when we make music. Also we have a lot of other songs that are pretty good to play live because of people's response to it, and when we play 'Let's Make Love' poeple freak out, so we are very happy to have that song.
'La Liberacion' is about being free and exploring. What makes you feel free?
I think anything that will take your mind out of the mundane things and transport you to some kind of other dimension. It's kind of like a fake feeling of freedom, but it also can affect your life in a deeper way. I particularly love songs that I can sing along to. The whole band also loves food. This is something that we are very serious about when we are touring.
Spontaneity is one of the things I associate CSS with. Just how much of your music is improvised on the spot?
The music is not improvised at all, but everything else in our show is very spontaneous. We understand each other's minds very well, especially when we're on stage. We have this very similar sense of humour, that is very good when we have to come up with stuff on the spot.
Also we love to do stuff like Mariah Carey would do but with a budget of 50 dollars. Like a cheap mega show. It's actually just cheap. But in our minds it reminds us of Mariah Carey. Like a cardboard version of Lady Gaga.
It's been five years since your debut album – is 'La Liberacion' a move forward for you guys?
Definitely. I think it's like how we would like to see us in the future five years ago.
The two title tracks 'Ruby Eyes' and 'Rhythm to The Rebels' both deal with the issue of being beautiful outsiders. What was it like being Brazilians living in Britain? How does London compare to São Paulo?
London is very very different from São Paulo in many senses, but both have this melting pot of cultures going on. São Paulo is where a lot of different people from different parts of the world come to build a new life. This is what make São Paulo cool, and it is what makes London amazing too.
CSS are playing XOYO on the 23rd of August. There new album 'La Liberacion' is out now on Subpop records.
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