Charivari (Black Cross Solo Sessions 7)

Few have managed to pivot quite so deftly between avant-gardism and exquisite pop as Arto Lindsay. A no-wave pioneer in DNA, jazz-funk-pop agent provocateur with Lounge Lizards and Ambitious Lovers, and an album producer – often for Brazilian artists – of rare intelligence, he’s also the anti-guitarist’s anti-guitarist. But the choices he makes when playing are highly considered, and this scratchy, skronky, abraded noise is finely tuned. Charivari is Lindsay solo, with none of the ‘finesse’ of his pop albums like The Subtle Body; the guitar navigates tough, scarred patterns, loops clashing against Lindsay’s brittle down-strokes, clusters of noise bombing the scene, and when Lindsay sings, his whispery sigh – sometimes dazed and distracted, sometimes oddly furious – feels curiously displaced. It’s a bravura set of miniature interventions and vexations.