A Sonic Youth drummer and two Brazilian musicians turn fuzzy garage rock into cosmic, prism-shard psychedelia.
MOODS · psychedelic · fuzzy · glam-tinged · propulsive · krautrock groove · punk energy · cosmic · experimental · raw · hypnotic
BIOGRAPHY
Riviera Gaz is a multinational trio built around Gustavo Riviera (leader of Brazilian band Forgotten Boys), multi-instrumentalist Paulo Kishimoto (Pitty, Forgotten Boys), and drummer Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth). What began as Riviera's solo project in Paris in 2013 became a full band by 2016, when Kishimoto and Shelley joined.
The group released the Pere Ubu EP in 2016 and its debut album Connection in 2018, a raw, punk-inflected record touring Stooges-style attack with Kinks and Bowie pop instincts. They toured across Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile before releasing their second album, Catacroma, which pushes the songs into stranger, more expansive territory.
WHY THEY'RE COOL
Riviera Gaz fuses distinct backgrounds, Forgotten Boys' punk energy, Pitty's studio versatility, and Sonic Youth's rhythmic drive, into something genuinely collective. On Catacroma, Steve Shelley's hypnotic, propulsive drumming anchors a sound that moves through glam, krautrock, noise rock, and Sabbath-heavy riffing, while Gustavo Riviera's vocals sit somewhere between Marc Bolan and Iggy Pop. It's a rare case of members from very different scenes converging into one unstable, exploratory sonic identity rather than a simple side-project collage.
GEORGE'S PLAYS
First time on the station.
PLAYED ON WOKE1
