An encyclopaedia of Arto Lindsay? The Pan-American, who grew up in Brazil, shows some humour with the title of his best-of compilation. This is because »The Encyclopedia of Arto« is not a career retrospective, but merely a selection from his solo albums produced between 1996 and 2004. This selection forms the first part of the CD, while the second part consists of live versions. And while the studio versions offer a thoroughly successful cross-section of Arto Lindsay’s solo work, which oscillates between Brazilian, funk, hip-hop and noise influences, the concert recording reminds the listener that the guitarist and singer, who is known for his »tone-free« style of playing, grew up in the New York no wave scene. Therefore, he doesn’t play any recognisable tones live either – in the studio, others do that for him anyway. These two sides of Arto Lindsay complement each other in an almost uncanny way, making his pop songs, which were quite unfathomable a moment ago, suddenly appear in a stark, self-exposing fragility, as if he were dropping the mask on stage. Apart from the lyrics and the melody, there is usually nothing left of the original; sometimes you must strain to recognise the original. For a real encyclopaedia, of course, his early work with bands like DNA, the Ambitious Lovers or the Golden Palominos is missing. However, this very contrasting double offers a surprising view of Arto Lindsay.
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