Cuz - Tamatebako

by Adrian Huggins

published: 12 / 6 / 2014

Label: Bleeding Heart Recordings
Format: CD

Exceptional eight years-in-the-making debut album from Cuz, which is the project of Mike Watt of the Minutemen and the Stooges and Sam Dook of the Go! Team

Review

Cuz is the combined brain, musical talents and imagination of Mike Watt of the Minutemen and the Stooges and Sam Dook of the Go! Team. They’re also really hard to google. Their debut album ‘Tamatebako’ has been over eight years in the making, and the result is a wondrous melting pot of ‘Argument’-era Fugazi, Queens of the Stone Age’s more “out there” moments, Q And Not U and the Dismemberment Plan. If any of those bands appeal to you, I promise that this will be a delight to your ears. Tamatebako’ is throughout its entire length simultaneously inviting and unnerving in equal measures. It is in essence weird music for weird people, but not so weird that it’s a struggle on first listen. The album is littered with Eastern-tinted moments as is evident on the gentle ‘Thinkin’ about Thinkin’. ‘Song for Ronnie’ veers between Tom Waits and Michael Gira of Swans with its spoken word, alt-jazz leanings. Elsewhere ‘W/No Beesting’ enters further into that spoken word territory, this time powered by a mind bending bass line. ‘Slipstream’ is meanwhile an incredible, delicate and joyous song that wouldn’t sound out of place on that previously mentioned Fugazi album nor would it be far removed to imagine it being plucked out of the swinging, psychedelic 1960s. Watt and Dook have combined to make a superb album that reaches to the far edges of the imagination, but remains throughout completely accessible and enjoyable.

Track Listing:-

1 Houdini
2 France Gnarl
3 Song for Ronnie
4 W/ No Bee Sting
5 Thinkin’ ‘bout Thinkin’
6 Tamatebako
7 Slipstream
8 Fickle Fortune
9 Sand and Bones
10 Spinning Basket Net
11 The Wheel and the Ring
12 The Lighthouse Keeper

Band Links:-

https://www.facebook.com/pages/CUZ/275
http://www.bleedingheartrecordings.com
https://www.facebook.com/wattfrompedro
http://mikewatt.com/
https://twitter.com/dooksam