CSS Ride Their 'Donkey' to the Breeders

Brazilian dance rockers Cansei Ser Sexy, or CSS as most people call them, have been having one heck of a summer. In addition to a host of festival stops around the world, including the Reading and Leeds festivals in the UK this coming weekend, the outfit just dropped their second album, 'Donkey,' on their Sub Pop home.

The effort, according to guitarist and sometime drummer Luiza Sa -- the lone member of the group to base herself in New York City -- was written on tour as the band promoted their self-titled, 2006 debut release. "Everyone is different about creativity," Sa tells Spinner. "Everyone needs a different creative environment and Adriano [Cintra, the group's multi-instrumentalist and main songwriter] -- he's done music for like 15 years. He's such a work-aholic and he doesn't mind anything. Writing for him was kind of a survival thing. When bad times came, he was just writing and writing more, which is very positive."

Despite the bad times, the album is as poppy as its predecessor thanks to songs like 'Jager Yoga,' with its angular bass guitar lines and deep bass grooves. And the album's title -- 'Donkey,' gives the record a fun twist too, with its name coming from their friend -- a Brazilian-to-Los-Angeles transplant with a diverse vocabulary.

"She has the funniest accent," La says of the friend. "She translates the Portuguese [sayings] and it doesn't make any sense. She used to sell our merch for a while and in Brazil, if you call someone a donkey, it means, 'Oh, you're stupid.' She used to like sell merch and be like, 'Oh, you're not gonna buy this shirt? You're such a donkey.' And the person would look like, 'What?'"

In addition to the new record, CSS has been breaking out a cover of late: the Breeders' Cannonball.' Though Sa said she's seen the reunited band in concert, she has yet to approach Kim Deal to find out what the author thinks of their version of the song.

"I saw them in NY at Webster Hall and it was so good," she enthuses. "I think we're going to be able to see them in some festivals. I don't know if we'll have the opportunity to talk to them or to meet them, but we're really big fans of the Breeders."