CSS: So Sexy It Hurts

Beyonce Knowles – “I’m Tired Of Being Sexy”

CSS, or better known to their friends and loved ones as Cansei De Ser Sexy, are riding the wave of critical acclaim all the way from Brazil. On their debut album you’ll discover all the ingredients for the best summer of your life. Fronted by  Lovefoxxx and sounding like Karen O having a torrid affair with Prince in the spare room of Tom Tom Club’s house, this band know how to make you sweat! Deceiving and thwarting our expectations from the start - we discover from Lovefoxxx that they’re not actually tired of being sexy at all but in fact it was “a stupid name we came up with. We’re not even sexy”. Well intentional or not, CSS have sexiness written all over them and literally oozing from every pore.

The sextet's self-titled debut, which they apparently didn’t know was smothered in a hormonal frenzy until they stepped out of Sao Paulo and into the wider world, is in its entirety a stroke of genius. From the cool as fuck electro-funk of ‘Let’s Make Love And Listen To Death From Above’ to the wonderfully scathing ‘Meeting Paris Hilton’ you can almost hear it calling from a sweaty corner of a wild dream to make us forget it's pissing down in August. Admitting to Lovefoxxx that the album just makes us want to get down and dirty, we find out it has had the desired effect. In the similarly broken English to that which appears on the album she declares: “I'm happy that you want to get on a dance floor when you listened to the album. That's what we want people to feel. Also when we play live, it is much more rock than in the record, and you still can dance to it.”

Formed in Sao Paulo sometime in 2003 (Like most things with CSS nothing is ever quite certain) the six members of CSS came together as a collective with one thing in common – they couldn’t actually play (So goes the folklore anyway). Looking outwards rather than inwards towards the scene surrounding their hometown, they set about making something global and even claim the internet as their home turf. “Our influences are much more international than Brazilian,” explains Lovefoxxx. “We were born and raised in Sao Paulo, and it probably influenced us somehow, but is not something that comes out directly on the type of music we make.” In fact their sound is one more akin to the fashion conscious streets of New York where James Murphy is name dropping everything that moves.

“Definitely Tom Tom Club and Sonic Youth,” says Lovefoxxx delving into the bands varied influences. “Also Cat Power, The Gossip, Christina Aguilera, Abba, L7, Pussy Galore, Prince. We like many different kinds of music. We don't like to stick with one style and take it really seriously.” Taking that last point and running away with suggestions of tongue-in-cheek references to poor pop music, we ask her about the name checking of that loveable socialite Paris Hilton. Specifically, what did CSS think of Hilton’s ill-fated venture into the recording studio? And the response: “If Debby Harry got run over by a car and got caught in the Tsunami at the same time, she would come out as Paris Hilton’s singing career.” Right, ok…we’ll take her word for it. By uttering her name in the same breathe as the blonde one, is she suggesting a real love and admiration for the insect woman? Guess we’ll never know, but she does add that Paris is better than Lindsay Lohan, so there’s something we can agree on.

Please help Gigwise target the right advertising to you by filling out this survey. Thanks! :)