Arto Lindsay

Studiously unstudied guitarist, producer and singer/songwriter Arto Lindsay made the New York experimental scene sexy. Born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1953, he grew up in Brazil, where his parents were Catholic missionaries. After heading back to the States for college, he moved to New York in 1974 and embarked upon a path that would entail an artistic return to his southern homeland. As co-founder of pioneering no-wave trio DNA in 1977, he introduced boldly atonal guitar skronk to downtown New York’s music underground. With the stated aim of blending Al Green with samba, he formed the Ambitious Lovers with keyboardist Peter Scherer, deploying a hushed yet tightly wound singing style over the sinfully titled Envy (1984), Greed (1988) and Lust (1991). With 1996’s O Corpo Sutil (The Subtle Body), Lindsay began meshing samba with brash drum ’n’ bass while singing sensually in both Portuguese and English. Production credits for Brazilian stars such as Caetano Veloso, Tom Zé and Marisa Monte lent him serious cred along the way, and 2017’s Cuidado Madame flaunted some of Lindsay’s most seductive lyrics and gorgeous tropical sounds to date.