I’ll admit it, I was skeptical that the world needed another TRAGIC MULATTO record, after all aren’t they just a junior BUTTHOLE SURFERS band? Bullshit—this is a fucking great, they’re a hell of a lot more concise than the SURFERS. A great sense of humour here, their cover of the Safeway theme song is hysterical as are most of the songs that deal with the seedier part of city living.
This 12″ gives TRAGIC MULATTO more room to be weird than their earlier single. It sounds like physically disabled persons attempting to play jazz, blind people playing from sheet music, or some self-indulgent artists with saxophones. But since most of it has a hard, steady beat and a melodic guitar—not to mention peculiar lyrics—it’s tolerable and interesting for other weird-asses like myself. Likable in short doses.
Noisy, stark, melodic, tribal, witty, unrelenting, and snotty as hell—that’s SF’s TRAGIC MULATTO. They have some of the same elements as the Independent Projects bands, but they’re more harsh and not at all reserved.
