CSS

Tue 17th Feb, 2009 in Features

There’s a kind of pop music that is light, but good. It’s a little bit like a fun holiday. You take photos, flirt with cute strangers and play silly tricks on your friends. With quirky imagery and simple poetic lyrics, Brazilian band Canseide Ser Sexy (also known as CSS ) make this kind of pop. “We have always been about having fun and not taking life too seriously,” says guitar and keyboard player Ana Rezende. “What’s the point of that really?”

Lighthearted adventure is a theme of their new album Donkey, albeit by accident. Ana is surprised when I point out that the latest singles, Left Behind and Move, are travel stories. “I didn’t even think about that! But I suppose for us in the band the thing we wanted to say with Move is that you absolutely have to keep moving all the time. You have to do new things and go to new places. You have to drop things if they don’t work anymore. And emotionally too, you have to move on.”

CSS will play the Future Music Festival across Australia, as well as several sideshows in late February and March. For Anna, Australia and Brazil have many similarities. “They are both wild! Australia has all flowers and nature everywhere. There are plants and incredible flowers that are so big and colourful. It is really a place where nature rules, you can hear the birds all the time, there are spiders and nobody kills them.”

It is no surprise that this kind of natural splendor appeals to the collective. Whilst Brazil may have a reputation for being a psychedelic paradise, the band hail from the high density and heavy concrete of Sao Paulo, a city whose population matches the whole of Australia. Within this city lies a small but thriving underground music scene, where the band members were able to find each other.

“When we started playing together it was really natural. Two of us were at school together and we had friends in common. But it was in the nightclubs that we started to hang out. We just started playing around together and had a lot of fun going to the recording studio and trying to work out what to do.”

From this start in small, independent scene in Sao Paulo, the band used the internet to find an audience. Brazilian networking website Trama Virtual hosted their music and put them in contact with press in Brazil and the UK. In 2005 they released their first album on the Trama Virtual label and have since toured widely in the US and Europe.

In 2006 the band signed to major American independent label Sub Pop. But they have not felt any pressure to get serious. “Sub Pop are not a label that try to push you,” says Ana, “They like their artists to be intuitive and work from that.” But that doesn’t mean they haven’t changed. “Our shows are getting a lot better and we have more focus. I think it’s because we have spent so much time together and built this common ground.” Success in the US and Europe has bought recognition in Brazil, and even inspired copycat bands. “Now that we have become successful there are other bands starting to play who identify with us. But I don’t know if I identify with them. What they are playing is really electro and we are just pop, really.”

Catch CSS being “just pop” at the following gigs during February and March…

Fri Feb 27th – Prince of Wales, Melbourne
Sat 28th Feb – Future Music Festival Sydney
Sun 1st Mar – Future Music Festival, Perth
Thu Mar 5th – The Metro, Sydney
Sat 7th Mar – Future Music Festival, Brisbane
Sun 8th Mar – Future Music Festival, Melbourne
Mon 9th Mar – Future Music Festival, Adelaide