TUSSLE: THE URB REVIEW

Like a hip-as-hell drum circle..without the Birkenstocks! Tussle should have broken up three times over by now. Not because of their music, mind you..it..s actually quite splendid, like Liquid Liquid with laptop pop condiments..but because only two of their original members were left standing as of last spring. (Bassist Andy Cabic quit to tour with Devendra Banhart and focus on neo-folk full time with Vetiver, while multi-instrumentalist Alexis Georgopoulos left not so amicably.) Lucky for us, a new, more-than-capable quartet has emerged from the ether with one of the greatest organic dance albums of the year. From filtered funk (the first half of ..Flicker/33.3..) to future-shocked drum circles (the charging herd of ..Elephants..), Telescope Mind might as well be a series of locked downtown grooves that jump from the jungle to the disco. And thanks to knob-twiddling mainstay Nathan Burazer, it..s made all the more interesting by a series of interludes (namely the ..Cloud Melodie.. suite) that point to an ambient and abstract plane Tussle has yet to truly tackle. Until next time; just don..t break up first. Reviewer: Andrew Parks