Forget picture-postcard Brazil with its sunny beaches, bikinis, palm trees and languid bossa novas: instead think abrasive, urban, industrial, think CCS, rising star of Sao Paulo's very distinctive musical scene.
"Sao Paulo is the economic centre of the country, a huge industrial town, culturally different to Rio or Bahia," said Carolina Parra of CSS, which this month released worldwide its second album "Donkey".
"This town is a bit of a mix of Los Angeles, Chicago and some giant, fast growing Chinese city," said Olivier Durand of the indie French record label Nacopajaz, which recently released "Satanic Samba", a compilation of Sao Paulo's underground music.
With 11 million inhabitants, Sao Paulo, capital of the region of the same name, is the biggest city in Brazil. "The climate is much colder and wetter than Rio, and there is no beach in the city," said Durand. "In a more urban and industrial environment like this, trends are more alternative, more underground."
Although Durand shies away from categorising music by place of origin, he says the Sao Paulo sound is more corrosive, nervy and punkish than sounds normally associated with Brazil.
Four women -- the singer Lovefoxxx, Luiza Sa, Ana Rezende and Carolina -- plus a lone male, Adriano Cintra, make up CSS, and its unbridled electro rock style with English lyrics.
Since the stunning world success of its first album in 2006, CSS, which stands for "Cansei de Ser Sexy" or "Tired of being Sexy" (a name inspired by a quote attributed to American pop star, Beyonce) has been pulling international attention to Sao Paulo's underground music scene.
Here, along with CSS -- whose second album has pushed them towards a live rock style destined for stage rather than studio -- stand a host of other musicians, both new and old.
The Satanic Samba album for example, includes, the new, such as CSS, Bonde do Role, Sulpa, Hurtmold, The Sao Paulo Underground and The Satanique Samba Trio, as well as Brazilian musical legends such as 71-year-old Tom Ze.
Ze was one of the key figures in the so-called "Tropicalia", or tropicalist social, cultural and musical movement against the authoritarian Brazilian regime of the 1960s.
Dubbed the "avant-tropicalist", Ze was followed by stars such as Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso and the psychedelic Os Mutantes.
The album and its music is stamped with aggressive urban energy, as well as deviant multi-racial mixes of punk, electro, hip hop, rock, bossa nova and samba.
It also features, for those who know something about this kind of music and its history, a wacky version of Serge Gainsbourg's "La decadanse" by another Sao Paulo local, Benzina, aka guitarist Edgard Scandurra.
"Musically, Sao Paulo has always been a pioneer city," said Durand. It is also a boiling-pot of culture, particularly contemporary art forms.
"It's a city full of possibilities, there is an intense artistic life here, lots of clubs," said CSS's Ana, who knows that design, fashion and video form part of the artistic attraction of the group.
And to clinch the deal on the city's attractions over those of beach postcard style Brazil, she adds: "For young people, its easier to find new foreign music in Sao Paulo than anywhere else in the country."
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