Buzzz

Tipsy

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 4, 2008)
• Original Release Date: November 4, 2008
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Ipecac Recordings
• ASIN: B001GN3ZIY
• Also Available in: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #152,605 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
San Francisco DrunkTronica duo Tipsy first appeared in 1996 with a cartoonish mix of cut-up thriftstore vinyl, twangy guitar and weird spacerock electronics.

Dave Gardner, a bay area native and obsessive record collector, got involved in the mid-80s avant/industrial/noise crowd, using tapes, record players, cheap samplers & broken guitars. He recorded a couple of albums with experimentalists PGR, and played with a dozen or so other SF groups, most notably cult industrial band IaoCore (which also spawned Matmos and Amber Asylum). While living at an art and music collective/performance space, he first met Hawaii-born Tim Digulla, then an enthusiastic Marin County teenager.

Tim eventually moved to San Francisco, worked with robot performance group Survival Research Labs and recorded with the psychedelic spacerockers Imajinary Friends (on Bomp) before ending up with Naut Humon's Sound Traffic Control studio/soundsystem.

After hearing some low-fi cassette tracks mixing easy listening with harsh electronics that Dave was working on, Naut offered to sponsor an album on his wife's then-new Asphodel label, and suggested Tim and Dave record together.

After a couple years work, they released the retro-lounge-themed TRIP TEASE (1997) which mixed cut-up exotica & electronics with real instruments in a slickly surreal, obsessively detailed way. By a lucky coincidence, it was released at the height of the brief lounge fad and turned out to be a surprise pop success, showing up in the background everywhere; obscure indie movie soundtracks, international soda and beer commercials, TV (MTV's Real World, the Sopranos, Sex in the City), the corner bar, even Tokyo Disneyland's Tomorrowland. Tipsy also started doing remixes; Pulp, Lords of Acid, Towa Tei, lots of others.

Working with producer/engineer/guitarist Alex Oropeza (Broken Horse,Tarnation), they recorded their next album, the excessively eclectic, dreamily cinematic, almost unclassifiable UH-OH (2001) with a top-shelf set of guest musicians, including avant /classical percussionist William Winant, Joe Gore, Ralph Carney, and the late Vince Welnick (the Tubes, Grateful Dead) among many others.

After years of changing membership, the live version of Tipsy eventually stabilized. In person, they are a much noisier, more unrestrained thing.

Dave Gardner - turntable, keyboard
Tim Digulla - synthesizer, electronics
Alex Oropeza - guitar
Travis Threlkel - drums
Mayumi Ota - bass

Despite being distracted by commercial corporate money music for hire (as well as occasional substance abuse), Tipsy has finally assembled a much anticipated new album, BUZZZ, on Ipecac Recordings; more rhythmically oriented, less loop-heavy than before. Featuring quirky Japanese singer Coppe', and many of the players from the previous album, Tipsy continues to push their pop weirdness another step beyond.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Addictive, November 17, 2008

By	D. Buckley "consumer 99" (Cleveland, OH United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First, I'm a huge Tipsy fan, so when this release was announced, I jumped on it right away.
No single track on Buzz has that 'instant hit' sound like "Hey", or that intensely drunken and hypnotic vibraphone and sax sound like "Fur Teacup" on Uh Oh. Ok, so there's no single track that matches the ultra-hip sound of "Ugly Stadium" on Trip Tease (did you catch that track in the Sopranos soundtrack?).
But Buzz, Tipsy's third release, is not disappointing! I can play these tracks infinitely and it doesn't grow old. It's like a time-distortion field that I'm trapped in. A moebius strip of sound that is not just background music - but rather background manipulation. If Martin Denny and Esquivel had used Absinthe and Magick to compose their music it would have sounded like this.
"Midnight Party" and "Good Little Demon" have risen to the top of my favorites with their catchy rhythms.
If you are like me, and sorely miss Combustible Edison, pick up every Tipsy release you can get your hands on, before they can't be found anymore.
Tipsy is not just new and authentic lounge music played well, it's authentic lounge music that actually makes you drunk - just by listening to it...