Montreal’s Tiga is one complex guy – who else can cover Nelly’s “Hot In Herre” and remix LCD Soundystem with equal sincerity? Tiga has been surprising listeners for nearly a decade, presenting absurd covers alongside collaborations with techno heavy hitters like Jesper Dahlbäck. His debut album, Sexor in 2006, managed to continue the tradition, winning the Juno award and in the same breath, garnering reviews that noted, “To fully appreciate Tiga’s Sexor you inevitably need to possess a good sense of humour.” Now three years later, Tiga is releasing sophomore effort Ciao! and in the process, showcasing a more sophisticated side. Has Tiga grown up? Avid fans can breathe easy. Although Ciao! traverses between the elegant and the rough and tumble, he still injects a wonderful tilt of humor that lets you know it’s just music after all. Here, Tiga speaks with URB about everything from an affinity for covers to working with Soulwax and of course, the importance of humor.
Dani Deahl: In a recent interview with MusicOMH it was noted that you have a contentious relationship with people who don’t quite understand what you’re about. They referenced your Twitter account and indeed, during that timeframe you posted items like “French interviewer just compared me to Grandmaster Flash…I’m so tired of it.”
T: I actually enjoy doing press and I certainly have no problem with journalists but what happens is, say you’re in Paris and you have to do 12 hours of interviews, once you hit the mid-way mark you start to feel like an insane person because it’s not natural. I’ve always felt well understood actually. It’s more just the situation in general, there’s only so much you can say about yourself, unless, that is, you’re actually crazy…but I’m not actually crazy.
DD: Well, it just made me think, from an artistic standpoint with someone like yourself who has produced conceptual albums and injects subversive humor into your music, is it so important that people ‘get’ what you’re trying to do or is it enough for people to like what you’re doing?
T: It’s fine for me if people just like what I’m doing. It’s not so important to me that finer points are discussed. It’s strange – the relationship with press and talking about stuff is weird. You finish something, and if you’re lucky people want to talk to you about it. They’re interested and your record label wants you to talk, so you go on these tours and into these different territories…and everyone starts with good intentions. I’m flattered that people want to talk about my stuff. After a while though you get tired or you say something stupid… My problem is that I try to not repeat myself, which is tiring and difficult. But to go back to things, I always have felt like I got a fair shake, so I’m not too concerned with being misunderstood.
DD: Your last album Sexor had a conceptual theme to it. Did you approach Ciao! with the same intentions?
T: No, there’s no real concept here. There was no unifying vision.
DD: So if there isn’t a unifying vision, what made you decide this was the right time to go back in the studio and what were the inspirations for beginning a new album?
T: I guess I didn’t have a specific focus…so there was no specific inspiration but I definitely felt the urge to get back in the studio. I guess I wanted to improve. I wanted to learn and get better at writing songs. I wanted the songs themselves to be slightly more developed musically. I wanted the lyrics to be more thought out. I didn’t want tracks because you know, on Sexor there were a lot of tracks that were done very quickly…drums…bass…synth line…quick one-take vocal, things very much aimed at clubs or DJs. I still love that, I have no problem with it, but I guess I wanted to try something different, more evolved for me. The inspiration then was along the lines of a different process or a different technique.
DD: I hear that in the album – it sounds very exploratory. There’s this dichotomy between the songs that are more melodic and then the banging, rough electro tracks.
T: Yeah, it wasn’t easy. That was a big discussion point working on the record – you have these two different sides and sometimes they find a common ground and other times they grate a little bit against each other. Obviously a track like “Mind Dimension” is quite crazy, freestyle, abrasive and kind of aggressive in a way and then there’s something like “Gentle Giant” which is almost an ambient, romantic pop song. So there are things that don’t normally sit together and in the end I thought well, they’re all coming from me and I like them all and it’s my album so I guess I can put them all on the same record.
DD: What songs do you find people are initially gravitating to?
T: Well in studio we have a joke – the songs that you adore that you work so long on…those are the ones no one is ever going to talk about. “Mind Dimension” is a very big club record. It has that vocal on it that, I don’t want to call it a slogan but in club environments it takes on a life of its own. “Shoes” is probably the one that has gotten the most media coverage and the most blog attention. My favorite is probably “Love Don’t Dance Here Anymore,” which is the last track on the album.
DD: And why is that your favorite?
T: Well I think sometimes you try to do something and you come close. It’s still good, but sometimes you come close. Other times you aim for something and you really get it exactly how you dreamt it would be. It doesn’t mean it’s objectively better than another song, but that song I wanted to be a ballad that turns into a long Giorgio Moroder disco epic and I wanted it to have a very specific sound and we really got to the destination so that’s a good feeling. It’s very nice when you actually create the sound that was in your head. A lot of the time you come close or you end up going somewhere different where you didn’t expect which is also amazing but when it really goes according to plan and it still has some spontaneous spirit it feels good.
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