Tipsy

For Tipsy's third album — the first in seven years — the San Franciscans offer another spiffy exercise in retro-avant instrumental music, an inspired film score in search of a movie. Buzzz proudly displays Tipsy's roots for all to hear, assimilating influences from electronic experimentalist Luke Vibert to the faux-exotica of Martin Denny and the cool-cat, jazz-accented soundtracks of Neal Hefti and Henry Mancini. "Chop Socky" features sharp '70s funk motifs (think Shaft) and space-age buzz-whirr collages over a relentlessly catchy reggae beat. "Kadonka" takes Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass to Jamaica, stopping at Lee "Scratch" Perry's house to get seriously dubbed out, a posse of jolly horns on a truly trippy holiday. "Good Little Demon" begins with rousing gospel-style handclaps before dissolving into a lounge mirage, and "Hot Banana" sounds like the theme song to I Dream of Jeannie played as a cha-cha. These hepcats are out to lunch ... at an incredibly zany all-night diner.