By Kimberly Chun

kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER

Flavor Flav may have ditched Brigitte Nielsen for Flavor of Love, his clock-rockin' version of The Bachelor, but I feel we've yet to check out of The Surreal Life. Surreal was the word as NYE 2005-2006 broke with blue, cloudless skies and ... a lake in the middle of Highway 29, just north of Napa, SUVs seemingly dashboard-deep in the distance.

Surreal. Like Rivers Cuomo going back to Harvard to finish up his English degree. I guess he wants some skin to fall back on. Surreal. Like the uncharacteristically clear view of NYE SF fireworks from the Bernal Heights party I attended, after taking an all-day detour away from Napa flooding. Surreal. Like the rumored Fleetwood Mac cover band party starring a Stevie Nicks-impersonating Joanna Newsom that none of us non-Nevada City fans braved the floods for. Surreal. Like the excruciatingly cute, tame squirrel that held my finger in his or her paws at Golden Gate Park's Botanical Gardens this week. Subsurreal. Like the cancellation of Live 105's 10-year-old weekly electronic music program, Subsonic, because – as host Shawn Reynaldo, a.k.a. Disco Shawn, told us in an e-mail – "it no longer fits in with the rest of the station."

Surreally sad. Cowsill singer Barry Cowsill, of the family band that supposedly brought down the sound and fury of the Partridge Family, was found on Dec. 27 in New Orleans' Charles Street Wharf after being missing since Hurricane Katrina came to town (yet reportedly was heard from and sighted in CNN footage).

OK, you get the idea. It bodes strange, if not outright psychedelic, times for the oncoming year. We're like dear little park rodents in the headlights. Times that I'm sure will suit Alexis Georgopoulos of Tussle and the Alps, who perform at the Hemlock Tavern Jan. 12. I spoke to the 31-year-old SF resident as he strolled toward Angelika Film Center to see Mrs. Henderson Presents (later fleeing to The Squid and the Whale) in NYC, where he was decompressing after a NYE Tussle show. "We're looking for mindless entertainment," he said amiably.

The Alps may not do much premeditated performance – documentation, according to their bio, consists of "press record and go. Then, like Teo Macero or Holger Czukay with much worse equipment and on hallucinogens, their spontaneous compositions are edited from the 'reels.'<\!q>"

Call it mindful improvisation of an eerily lovely, droning, groaning sort – Aquarius Records describes their self-released debut, Jewelt Galaxies, as "quite beautiful," with their 2005 Foxy Digitalis album, Spirit Shambles, covering similar misty, mystic-mountaintop instrumental terrain with throbbing, swirling beats, moaning winds and distortion, and stirring, lederhosen-clad affirmation.

Coming up for the Alps' Georgopoulos, Scott Hewicker (a member of Troll and a painter represented by Jack Hanley Gallery), and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma (a member of Tarentel and solo artist Colophon): a full-length for Japanese imprint Spekk, with artwork by Keegan Mchargue; a 12-inch on Chris Johanson's new label Awesome Vistas; and a song on Devendra Banhart's tribute comp in honor of the works of Clive Palmer. Yeah, you heard right, Hellraisers – not Clive Barker.

The Alps began after Georgopoulos and Hewicker met at Adobe Books. They began swapping records with Cantu-Ledesma – "a lot of '70s commune Krautrock and weird Italian soundtracks and drone records" – and one day they decided to take their relationship to the next level and play music together. "Basically everything we do is spontaneous – that's really nice when everyone is busy with other things," said Georgopoulos, who also writes and makes art. He got the Alps name from the titles of the CD-Rs he'd give to friends.

And by the way, the forthcoming Tussle album sounds fabulous – danceable yet dreamy and exploratory, with the odd experimental foray.

"I think we just wanted to make a record that wasn't a repeat of what we'd done with Andy [Cabic, who recently left the band to devote more time to working with Banhart and Vetiver] and take things in a slightly new direction," he explained. "And I think we're all quite happy with it. We were always unhappy with the overt, the journalist thing, that we were just punk-funk or disco-punk or just the dub tag. So with this record we tried to lose overt dub a bit. We wanted to try out new things, but not necessarily psychedelic in a retro intentional style."

We shouldn't be expecting you to be wearing mod boots and playing Vox guitars anytime soon? "We don't even have a guitar in the band!" he exclaimed. "It's more of a psych-rhythm approach, or something, so it's been conscious and unconscious as well."

And the unselfconsciousness extends to the Alps' next show, for which, Georgopoulos said, "In classic form we might not even meet before the show. So, no, I don't have idea what will happen." Good advice anytime – chin up in '06.

THE ALPS With Greg Davis and Sebastien Roux, and Birdshow Thurs/12, 9:30 p.m. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF $6 (415) 923-0923 www.hemlocktavern.com TUSSLE With Gossip, Numbers, and Dynasty Handbag Jan. 27, 9:30 p.m. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF $12 (415) 474-0365 www.bottomofthehill.com

Catch it

E.S.T. (ESBJORN SVENSSON TRIO)

Swedish garage rock? No, just the smoothest Swedish jazz piano trio. Wed/11-Thurs/12, 8 and 10 p.m., Yoshi's, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakl. $10-$14. (510) 238-9200.

EL CAPITAN

Coolly emotive indie, Bay Area-style. Say Hi to Bay Guardian contributor Mike Alexis as he heads AM Magic. Thurs/12, 9 p.m., 12 Galaxies, 2565 Mission, SF. $10. (415) 970-9777.

MEAT PURVEYORS

Texas does a few things right: Barbecue with a side of white bread, Flatlanders, Austin, and Bloodshot bluegrass revivalists Meat Purveyors. Fri/13, 9 p.m., Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck, Berk. Call for price. (510) 841-2082. Sun/15, 9 p.m., Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St., SF. $7. (415) 647-2888.

NORTH MISSISSIPPI ALL STARS

Southern-rock apologists and blues-fusion fiends love this pedigreed crew. Fri/13-Sat/14, 9 p.m., Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. $20-$22. (415) 771-1422.

THE WEEPIES

Could Deb Talen and Steve Tannen be the Johnny and June of folk-pop? Sun/15, 8 p.m., Café du Nord, 2170 Market St., SF. $10. (415) 861-5016.

HELIO SEQUENCE

The Northwest's spastic guitar and drum duo break from work on their third album. Sun/15, 8 p.m., Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. $10. (415) 861-2011.

Alexis Georgopoulos's albums on heavy rotation

Cluster, Zuckerzeit (Spalax)

Lula Cortes e Ze Ramalho, Paebiru (Shadoks)

Joyce and Nelson Angelo, Joyce e Nelson Angelo (Odeon)

Broadcast, Tender Buttons (Warp)

David Axelrod, Songs of Innocence (Capitol)

Sonny Murray, "Suns of Africa" (Actuel)

Frédéric Chopin, Waltzes (Deutsche Grammophone)

Shoes, Black Vinyl Shoes (Black Vinyl)

Elizabeth Cotton, Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar (Smithsonian Folkways)

Performance soundtrack (Warner Bros.)