Tussle Kling Klang
Imagine the scene: the Blue Man Group battles the cast of Stomp in a black-lit […]
Imagine the scene: the Blue Man Group battles the cast of Stomp in a black-lit warehouse while King Tubby broadcasts the mayhem through a transistor radio equipped with a Volkswagen-sized subwoofer. Tussle takes a slice of reedy, early ’80s post-punk and mellows it with dub’s heavy-lidded throb and cavernous reverb. A drum circle’s worth of fluttering percussion-rim shots, hand claps, snare hits, cow bell-keeps the push-pull from tearing down the middle. This LP doesn’t stray from the funky precedent previously established by the San Francisco four-piece; rather, it provides a deeply hypnotizing, fully-developed extension of it.