A Scottish critic, talking about Arto Lindsay's first solo excursion into bossa nova balladry, O Corpo Sutil (The Subtle Body), suggested that Arto sings "in a voice that seems to have found the missing link between Woody Allen and Astrud Gilberto." A writer for The Independent in London took a similar approach: "Imagine Lou Reed backed by an industrial version of Sergio Mendes and Brazil 66." While it's clear that Arto inspires writers to wax clever about his disparate influences, his music offers an even greater challenge to them: how to describe the somewhat indescribable delights of this seeming collision of cultures: a noisemaking standard-bearer of New York City avantgarde-dom exploring the simple and subdued pleasures of the bossa nova. What seems unlikely on paper proves irresistible on disc and maybe that's all there is to say, except that Arto's intimate exploration of Brazil's most sensual sound is not so unlikely after all.

Noon Chill is the third installment in Arto's solo journey. Part one, O Corpo Sutil, surprised and seduced a sophisticated audience around the world with its simple and heartfelt homage to the bossa nova. Mundo Civilazado, Arto's second solo effort, blended Brazilian rhythms with electro sounds from some of Manhattan's more forward-thinking deejays and featured all-star assistance from around the globe. Noon Chill, as its title implies, is as warm and inviting as its predecessors, but there's dissonance around the edges, as if Arto's previous incarnation in the world of noise were coming back, mischeviously, to haunt him. Arto has suggested in interviews that these records comprise a bossa nova trilogy; at the very least, it's hard to listen to just one. (And fans will surely hope that Noon Chill is merely the third in a series.) 

Contemplating this music prompts one, perhaps inevitably, to think about sex since sex -- the before, the during, and the after -- seems so much a part of the bossa nova, and a taste of this music can only lead to your wanting more -- more of Arto, that is. If you start from the beginning of this trilogy, you can sense Arto's learning curve: he starts out a humble but gifted student, then adds jungly, deejay-driven sounds that have captured his New York ears and give the work a slightly surreal spin, and he ends up, on Noon Chill, with something utterly natural and confident, a starker, more percussive feeling that echoes its Brazilian roots even though it was created entirely in New York City.

New York City has been Arto Lindsay's adopted home for close to 25 years and he has always been a pioneer on the farther edges of the pop music scene, where the attitude has always been rock and roll but the results decidedly avant-garde. With DNA, a trio that defined the late-seventies "no wave" movement in New York, he supplanted melody with noise and put the "no" in new wave. As a guitarist, he conjured up a style that will forever be known as "skronk", a jittery burst of sound and inspiration that became his signature. He has since worked with the Lounge Lizards, the Golden Palominos, Laurie Anderson and David Byrne, among others, and began to play around with Brazilian sounds a decade ago with the Ambitious Lovers.

But his love for Brazilian music comes from his own youth, not from the heady company he has kept. The son of missionary parents, Arto was raised in Brazil. As a boy during the sixties, he absorbed, if not fully understood, an exciting and dangerous period in Brazilian music. The Tropicalistias, young, forward-thinking musicians steeped in local traditions but looking for inspiration globally, began to combine African, European and American influences with traditional Brazilians sounds, creating a vibrant musical hybrid that the repressive military government found downright subversive. It's a period that Arto has since documented on compilations he produced, like O Samba for David Bryne's Luaka Bop label and NAME IT, and he has collaborated extensively with famed Tropicalista Caetano Veloso, who has also lent a strong melodic hand to these bossa nova records.

As a man for whom Brazil, as much as America, has been a home -- and for whom Portugeuse is not a second but a next-to-native tongue -- Arto brings an unmistakable ease and affection to this work. In this multi-part adventure that culminates -- for now -- in Noon Chill, Arto Lindsay is a cross-cultural explorer, not a tourist or a musical plunderer. To hear him sing bossa nova, in English and in Portugeuse, feels like a call from home.