Paperjam

The Tuss May Or May Not Be Who You Think

Music // Steve // 10th June 2007

While we're talking about bands beginning with "The", there's been ever such a fuss about the new stuff from Cornish techno type Brian Tregaskin, recording as The Tuss.

A EP called "Confederation Trough" appeared on Rephlex a while back, and everyone (no, really - everyone) who listened to it went, hmmm, that sounds quite a lot like Aphex Twin in general, and the recent acid-splattered Analord series to be specific. And you say this chap is Cornish? And it's out on Rephlex, where all those lovely AFX tracks have come from the in past? Could it be that The Tuss is Richard D James?

Wait there, Sherlock. The battle has opened up on the Myspace front, with a load of sites springing up: Karen Tregaskin, Patrick Tregaskin, and the apparent ringleader Brian Tregaskin, who in one short but bitter blog post had a go at the Guardian's Louis Pattison, who wrote a lovey-dovey article about the whole affair ("Dancing in the dark"), calling him a "twat" and demanding a retraction.

So now I'm writing about it, and the two of you reading about this now know about it, and there's been oh-so-very-much discussion on the internet in various forums, as you might expect, and it's all cleverly building up to the release of the 6-track LP, coming out later this month. Ah, they got me, the clever marketing bastards.

It's a bit childish, but it's got lots of people talking, and it's a bit mysterious and pop-starr-y. RDJ seems like an enigma, he doesn't do much in the way of interviews, and when he does, he doesn't really give much away, unlike all the identikit indie-pop types.

So what about the music? Oh, that old thing.

Well "Confederation Trough" is ok - "GX1 Solo", named after the amazingly rare and massive Yamaha synthesiser that Abba used on "Lay all your love on me", is a bunch of wanky bollocks, if you can ear-visualise that, but "Alspacka" and "Fredugolon 6" are rather better bits of spannered analogue electronic fun, packed full of ideas, like a entire series of "Why don't you?". Having said that, they doesn't reach the emotional heights of the "Analord" series ("Home made polysynth", "Pissed up in SE1", "Crying in your face", "I'm self employed").

Back in Myspace-land Brian Tregaskin has denounced the recent leak of the upcoming "Rushup Edge" as a fake, claiming that the track on the Myspace player, "Teddy Oggle" is really from the album. I hope so - it's great, really warm and wonky - as if your little sister has been misusing the belt from your dad's record player to bind together her collection of scary dolls, like some sort of glamorous plastic miniature death camp. To me, it sounds like A**** T*** at his best, conjuring up a dense atmosphere and emotion from the control voltages.

Whatever - even if The Tuss doesn't turn out to be that same bloke that made "Didgeridoo" it's another chapter added to the myth.