Flavoring their respective instruments with liberal amounts of electronic effects, loops, and delays, the New York City trio Drums & Tuba creates an instrumental palette of sounds that includes funk, fusion, rock, ambient, and other modern dance strains. As on previous works, the group in no way limits itself to traditional styles of arrangement. This freedom is what allows the band (joined by keyboardists Manny Handerson and Things Fingerton on occasion) to stretch out and cover an...   [ read more ]

CD $16.13

Creating a musical concoction that mixes Minutemen-like arrangements with a high-school marching-band sensibility, this second volume from Drums & Tuba's Water Damage reissue series is a refreshingly unique entry into the rock canon. With Neal McKeeby lassoing guitar lines around Brian Wolff's tuba as D. Boon once did with Mike Watt's basslines, images of the Minutemen are conjured through tight grooves and sharp improvisation. Still, nothing about this band is typical, as the ch...   [ read more ]

CD $12.33

The N.Y.C.-based instrumental trio once again steps outside of the box that made their career such tough going early on. And like 2001's Vinyl Killer, it's a sloppy/happy mix of jazz, funk, R&B, space rock, and electronica that propels things here. It still doesn't make a whole lot of sense out of context, but Mostly Ape is Drums & Tuba's most consistent work, a piece that explores evolution, man's place in it, and what it all means for the future -- we think. The 12 songs are in...   [ read more ]

CD $16.13