Date:    Tue, 28 Oct 1997 13:25:51 -0800
From:    Jens Alfke <Jens.Alfke@SUN.COM>
Subject: Stereolab / Portishead / TIPSY

Speaking of which, another groop to mention here is TIPSY, whose
"Trip-Tease" album on Asphodel is one of my favorites this year. I got it
back in March but never managed to write a coherent review; it's too easy to
just start making up buzzwords like "acid lounge". Tipsy make space-age
bachelor pad music a la Esquivel or Martin Denny or Jean-Jacques Perrey, but
they assemble it using all our favorite sampling/looping techniques. The
modernism of the structure isn't blatant, but anyone with an ear for samples
and loops (anyone on this list certainly!) will "get it" instantly. The
sampling (and use of newly-recorded loungestyle instrumentation too) is
impeccably done, and the sounds and melodies are a great homage to all our
favorite cheesily compelling SABPM, but what really makes it work is that
the songwriting is excellent -- tracks like "Nude On the Moon", "La Bomba
Atomica" and "Liquordelic" are just impossibly catchy and compare well with
the zaniest and most hummable of Esquivel's works. When I played the album
for friends, we would all spontaneously start laughing at the beginning of
every track, just from the sheer interstellar goofiness of the exploding
brass sections, yo-yo'ing steel guitars, and popping champagne cork
percussion. (A few tracks at the end do get a bit darker and moodier, in
sort of a "DJ Shadow meets Henry Mancini" vein.) If the waning of the year
and the end of daylight-savings time are getting you down, you _need_ to buy
this CD and listen to it at high volume while basking under a sunlamp.

In my perfect world Stereolab would go back to the Krautrock refreshed and
leave the goofy lounge-pop stuff to Tipsy, who have the situation well under
control.