http://soc.li/ON1lMFP From the Daily News Stride down the grittier blocks of Rua Augusta in São Paulo, Brazil , and you'll spy prostitutes, crack addicts, street fights and, it just so happens, one of the most vibrant live music scenes in the world. Like some Southern Hemisphere corollary to New York's East Village of the '70s, São Paulo has, over the last few years, incubated a scene that has spawned exciting exports like Curumin, CSS, Telepathique, Sonantes — and a solo singer who also fronts that last band: Ceu (pronounced cell). Not that these acts sound at all like vintage New York punk — or even each other. "The scene here isn't a movement that has ideologies," Ceu says. "It's just that we have so many bands writing their own songs and so many beautiful singers down here." Ceu's own sound provides an ideal bridge between expected Brazilian styles — the airy and sensual lilts common to bossa nova — and a vast palette of m...
