There's absolutely no way I'm going to do the amazing Arto Lindsay justice here, so I probably shouldn't even try. Suffice to say, if this post and this song make you curious, you should check out the man's bio on his own website. I'd first heard of him back in college when I prized a copy of the preeminent 'No Wave' document, No New York from my undeserving college radio station's library, where it was busy gathering an impressive patina of dust. Originally released in 1978, No New York was Brian Eno's big label, four-band sampler intended to introduce New York City's endearingly unwieldy "No Wave" phenomenon on an oblivious world. No New York was the sonic point of collision between the aesthetics of the avant-garde and Punk Rock's "refuse and resist" ethos taken to discordant new extremes. The world, inevitably, didn't quite know what to do with it. The scene vanished as quickly as it appeared and No New York swiftly went out of print, becoming a much-sought after artifact for rock geeks and a template for bands like Sonic Youth, Swans, Pussy Galore and many others. It's since been re-issued, so go get it and hear it for yourself.

In any case, Arto's contributions to No New York came via his incendiary trio, DNA. Alongside Ikue Mori's feverish percussive pounding and Robin Crutchfield's careening organ (later replaced by ex-Pere Ubu bassist, Tim Wright's elliptical bass-lines ), Arto howled and attacked his guitar in the most savage, pointedly unconventional manner imaginable. In simpler terms, DNA made The Ramones sound like Genesis. Never mind that it wasn't even remotely blues based, it was barely recognizable as anything other than frantic bursts of staccato noise; the sonic equivalent of a Jackson Pollack painting. Easy listening it was not.

Then there was Arto himself - a archetypically bespectacled, pencil-neck geek of a sort that made Elvis Costello look like Peter Frampton. Arto Lindsay single-handedly immolated the "guitar hero" stereotype. Unsurprisingly, DNA never really caught on, and fell apart in 1982. Outside of No New York and a couple of other compilations, their music can be hard to find, although in 1993, the Japanese label, Avant, did release a live album of theirs with a price as handsome as Arto arguably isn't.

After DNA, Arto formed a new band called Ambitious Lovers, mixing his penchant for avant-garde skronk with jazz, funk and his deep love for the music of his native Brazil. I'd always meant to check one of their three discs out, but never got around to it. Apart from spotting his in a fleeting cameo in Madonna's big budget cinematic debut, "Desperately Seeking Susan" (Arto plays an editorial clerk for The Village Voice), I never gave him much more thought.

Several years later, I found myself working two night shifts a week at TIME Magazine's (now defunct) News Desk, acting as a liaison between the magazine's far-flung correspondents around the world and the editorial staff. It was normally a pretty busy gig, but things would tend to quiet down in the wee hours of the morning. In such time, when not reading or monitoring the news, I'd trawl the `net looking for caches of Mp3s. On one such occasion, I stumbled on someone's collection of diverse, eclectic music (most of it appalling) and found this track from Arto Lindsay's 1996 album, Mundo Civilizado. Instantly recalling my adoration for the frightening racket of DNA, I eagerly downloaded it, curious as to how Lindsay's music had evolved. What I heard was completely unexpected, but hugely satisfying all the same.

Entire planets away from the jittery, atonal noise of DNA, "Q Samba" is a lithe, funky little number that details Arto's fascination for a dancer's graceful moves (noting her "pelvic finesse"), set to a deceptively teetering riff that is buoyed at unexpected points by bursts of percussion, hip-swaying Portuguese rhythms and noodling keyboards. As I noted in this post, I've never been a big fan of "world music" or - let's face it - any music that didn't otherwise adhere to the strict parameters of "rock," but I still dug this quite a bit. Perhaps I appreciate "Q Samba" for all the things it's not (i.e. a screechy, nerve-fraying rage). It's just so hard to fathom something so groovy, funky and sexy from a man who previously strove (and succeeded) to make music that eviscerated all semblance of such form, structure and sensibility.

Anyway, enjoy "Q Samba." It won't attack your face the way DNA did, it'll make you moooove!