Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Tussle on Geographic North records

The second in this series GN02 is by the group Tussle...didn't know anything about these guys before setting it down for a spin.

More ultra minimal sleeve graphics on heavy card stock...I have to say it's nice to have a unified graphic look like this, I can pick them out of a stack easy...in fact I'm still looking for one GN03 (which is a poster, not a 7"....that explains it .....ed), but I'll know it when I see it from a mile away.
Yellow swirl heavy vinyl here...

Tussle is giving me a kind of Cornelius feel, more like a remix kind of thing, not a DJ project, but more like sample archivist or environmental project. It really has that feel of separate pieces magically tacked together.
Turns out it's a four piece consisting of drums (live/sampled), electronics and bass. I don't know why it feels sampled. Maybe because the melodies are so independent, the sounds so idiosyncratic...the sounds so specific they're like sound effects.


The A-Side, sorry the North side, 'Animal Cop' is very bassline groove driven. This had to have been the foundation for the track, it's so right up front and sure. The drums are so clean sounding, I'm having trouble telling what could have been recorded live and what wasn't...aside from the obvious electronic glitchy hits. So many different sounds are used, cowbells, warning alarms. There's a breakdown part of just live minimal drums at one point. It doesn't sound too far away from Tortoise, Pullman...that post-jazz influenced sound. It's instrumental, and full of little twists and turns.

The B-Side 'Room 191' is a little less groovy, it sounds really like a rehearsal track or a demo take, and this is a little sliver of something larger. Near reggae dub-like in the bassline this time, with delayed piercing keyboard blasting in. Super short, must be less than a minute...nice little sample of what they can be capable of.

This one is still available for order from Geographic North....

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