Tipsy's Trip Tease, which we reviewed in 1997 (when, as anyone clicking that link will see, our attitude toward web design was considerably more relaxed), was a striking and ground-breaking piece of work. Its lightweight, bouncy lounge mood concealed painstaking craftsmanship, each track carefully assembled using a tightly-sequenced, lovingly arranged batch of samples. At the time, it was a masterwork of recombinant kitsch -- and an effort that, predictably, took years to follow up.
After nearly five years, during which their label, Asphodel, died and was reborn, Tim Digulla and Dave Gardner have fielded a well-named sophomore effort. Uh-Oh! enters a very different musical market, and its sudden burst of apprehension is justified.
Two major factors have contributed to the new and different musical climate, and both arrived on the scene at more or less the same time as Trip Tease. First of all, there's the Austin Powers phenomenon, which dragged the dying embers of the Lounge Revival slowly but surely into the mainstream. Obviously, the two AP films haven't resulted in the wholesale canonization of Martin Denny, or anything similarly broad-based, but they created a market for the kitsch-light sounds of Fantastic Plastic Machine and their ilk. Advertisers caught on, which is an inevitable kiss of death for anything trendy. As a result, most listeners aren't anywhere near as excited by lounge samples as they once were. Then there's the second factor -- the growth in popularity of intricate, sample-based music, particularly the works of Amon Tobin. Gaining notoriety at more or less the same time as Tipsy, Tobin has the advantage of working considerably faster than Gardner and Digulla, and has virtually laid claim to the field of jazz-sample-based, beat-inflected construction.
I make these points not to prepare you for the news that Uh-Oh! is a "bad" record. It isn't. It's quite satisfying, and perhaps less gimmicky than Trip Tease. However, the maturation of the duo's style has led them away from lounge music and towards the darker Brazilian jazz that, correctly or not, is now identified as Tobin's territory. The rhythmic punctuation and goofy effects that distinguished their music -- bass drum hits, non-sequitur samples, orchestral zings and "pows" drawn in equal portion from Esquivel and Spike Jones -- are downplayed, though it's more of a gradual phase-out than a cold-turkey cut-off. This, after all, is an album that begins with an insouciant slide whistle.
Detail-hunters will catch a sample of a classic Star Trek phaser in "Papaya Freeway", and will swoon to the lush, easy-listening glamour and lovelorn oboe "vocal" of "Sweet Cinnamon Punch". All but the sternest punk rockers will be swayed by the Benny Hill-esque hijinks of "Reverse Cowgirl", while the playful tropical vacation fantasy mood created by "Bunny Kick" will have listeners longing for an early vacation. There's a shimmering sense of otherworldly grandeur at work here that captures the spirit of exotica better than any of the other so-called "revivalists". The building blocks might be simple -- a bit of reverse-gated Hawaiian guitar here, a splattering of peculiar sound effects there, a liberal application of shiny keyboard haze -- but it works. Digulla and Gardner also deserve credit for their brevity; with only one of these eighteen tracks exceeding the 3:30 mark, the songs (and the loops from which they're built) don't have time to wear out their welcome. If the track you're listening to sounds an awful lot like an Amon Tobin tune with a few carefully-placed "boings", don't worry -- the next one probably won't. And if you're the type of listener who enjoys identifying the source of "borrowed" musical material, Uh-Oh! will make you quiver with anticipation.
In the end, it's probably unreasonable to expect Uh-Oh! to be mind-blowing. The first record was bouncy, surreal, good natured fun, and Uh-Oh! makes a concerted effort to deliver more of the same, while broadening the scope of the original concept. If Uh-Oh! is, of necessity, a darker record than Trip Tease, perhaps we should take it as a sign of the times.
