Arto Lindsay

Musicians who trade on their oddball status usually get tiresome fast, but Arto Lindsay—a downtown New York fixture and No Wave legend who is equally known for his experiments with Brazilian music and for never tuning his guitar—has managed to parlay his übergeek image and avant-garde tendencies into some of the most engagingly strange pop music of the last two decades. Previous albums have found him delving into electronica, and some of those textures remain important, but the focus here is really on the songs and their lyrics: "Predigo" finds him sputtering in Portuguese over his skronky guitar and layers of Brazilian percussion; "Over/Run" features a stop-and-start drum loop and spare keyboard part running along under lines like, "It’s dark and tart/Puddles reflecting/Cheekbones, fog/Way too flattering." Like I said, very downtown. Recommended.