Crack

There has always been scope to make live electronica less about computers and more about ballsy, grinding performance. So many bands call themselves live these days, but yet there are only a few live elements to their performance and you feel cheated.

Another advantage of dealing with this kind of band is very little is left in the locker room. One such band are Three Trapped Tigers and after watching them you feel like you’ve been assaulted. In the nicest way one can be assaulted.

Crack’s time with keyboard player and multi-instrumentalist Tom Rogerson, heralds a few eye-opening things. Initially, someone who is in to Warp records and Squarepusher, but in equal measure, Bruce Springsteen, is bound to be a musically astute chap, but also the music is going to be accessible to an extent. This, let no one fool you, is useful.

Three Trapped Tigers are complicated, emotional listen, but you can move to it as well. They aren’t consciously trying to put people off in the same vein some bands try, in order to remain ‘interesting’. It’s all very well throwing yourself out there, but keeping one foot in musical sanity comes highly recommended.

Their last physical release, the straight to the point, EP3, is a whirlwind of a listen. Choosing to name their tracks numerically, continuing on from EP1 and EP2, EP3 is a four-track slice of math-rock genius and contains a baffling array of sounds and tempos.

The band are set to release their new album, Route One or Die Through Biscuits, on May 16th, and are embarking on a UK tour that will take in 16 dates across the latter half of May, including a gig for Crack at Start The Bus, with Tall Ships on May 27th. Tom talks to Crack about how Three Trapped Tigers have evolved and the nature of this complex sound.

Three Trapped Tigers have been likened to Aphex Twin, Squarepusher and Battles. Is this the kind of sound you were going for?

Yes, to an extent. With respect though, Battles weren’t really part of it, but Aphex and Squarepusher massively so amongst a whole load of others. The starting point was trying to replicate the live sound of that drill n’ bass stuff by keeping the melodies and the synths, but with live drums.

How do you see yourselves as a band compared with others today? Where do you feel you fit in?

Personally I don’t feel like we fit in particularly well. There’s been a live electronica boom recently led by Battles, who opened the door. We’ve also played with Fuck Buttons and 65 Days of Static who are flying the flag in this country. But we’ve never felt part of any scene, as we’re all kind of losers who are immersed in our own stuff. Our musical friends are involved in very different kinds of music and we hardly go out to gigs at all.

It seems that TTT are genuinely a very difficult band to classify. How does it feel to be set apart from your contemporaries and described as something truly original?

Being hard to classify is a good thing I’d say, although you have to be prepared to be called strange things. Being original is obviously important to us, but I’m not trying to hide our influences at all. I think we wear them on our sleeve. Both of these things were important from the very start as we were aiming to be difficult to classify and original. As for being set apart from our contemporaries, I don’t know that we are. If we’re set apart from the 98% of acts who are easy to classify and unoriginal, then I’ll take that.

I read your name comes from the book by Cabrera Infante? Is there any meaning behind this - other than the fact that you just liked the name?

Not really. There were four of us originally, so the name was less literal. I liked the ame, the book, the country and the acronym. I also knew it would put us between The The and Throbbing Gristle on my iPod, which I thought was appropriate.

The naming of your EPs and tracks are numeric. What is the reason for this and can we expect it to be continued on the new album?

The reason for that was to avoid having to explain the songs. But of course every interviewer since has asked about it, so instead we’re conventionally naming the tracks on the new album.

We’ve read somewhere that you spent some time living in New York and got involved in the jazz scene there. How much has this influenced TTT?

All three of us met through some kind of London student jazz scene. Improvisation is actually quite a big part of the group, even if we don’t do much of it when we play gigs. Matt and I started out as partners in an improv group, where he was manipulating my piano on a laptop. Having said that, I would say that the New York and London jazz scenes, as currently composed, offer very little that has specifically inspired or influenced TTT. If anything, the band is a response to the cosiness and conservatism of those scenes.

What was the scene like in New York compared to the UK? Where do you prefer playing?

For jazz (which I was doing at the time), NYC wins hands down. But in London, jazz musicians are much less precious about the genre. All the Americans were telling me they thought London was a much better city. And in the end, all the music I was listening to was, if not British, then European. So I came home!

Improvisation is clearly an important aspect of your music, but how much do you get to do that now?

Not as much as I’d like, although I’m hoping to be able to develop that with some kind of alternative gigs and recordings for us. There’s still quite a lot of loose improv on stage within the songs and structures, most obviously from Betts.

You’re influenced by classical music, so how did you first get into electronic music and do you think classical and modern electronic work well together?

Classical and modern electronic ought to work really well, but very often they don’t. The classical world doesn’t really ‘get’ electronic music. You go and hear Stockhausen in the Festival Hall and it’s ridiculous. If you put it in some kind of club or grungy arts venue (with no seats and a bar) it’d make more sense in my view. But those worlds are converging all the time. The noise/drone scene has achieved it best. Laptops have changed everything.

Three Trapped Tigers’ live shows have a reputation for offering a no-holds-barred experience. What does playing live mean to you?

It means having a chance to get a lot out of my system that I couldn’t otherwise do, and I think I speak for all three of us there. It’s always exhausting, physically and mentally, and it’s always emotional, frequently aggravating, violent and frustrating. But that’s what’s so great about it. For me (and maybe I differ from Matt and Betts here), live is more important than recording. All our songs are built with that in mind.

What has been the best experience you’ve had as a band playing live?

It varies. We got to support and meet Autechre (who obviously had no idea who we were). That was a personal highlight. We got to play in a superclub in Germany with Modeselektor and Apparat; amazing sound in a huge industrial space. Incredible. But is that necessarily better than watching 170 pissed-up Cornish teenagers go completely mental in Falmouth?

Not sure, but do you think you are a band that plays better in certain types of environment? Is your music suited to a small dark club or a large one?

I hope that we’re flexible enough to adapt. As time goes on I think we’ll stretch out even more so that we’re able to fill a big club as much as a small one. But right now, it’s always the smaller ones that feel right. This comes back to the live versus electronic thing. When it’s electronic it’s all about the sound, so you want a big space with a big sound system. When it’s as live as we are, it needs to be intimate enough for you to connect - so you feel the hit of the drums.

Your songs are beautiful, but at the same time chaotic. What is the process of putting together each song? Have you always worked in the same way, or did it take time to find the way you work together best?

Yes it took a while, and I’d say that we’re still looking for it. Each EP and now the album have been conceived in different ways, sometimes deliberately, sometimes not. On the album it generally starts from a fragment of material I’ve come up with. Then either we jam it the three of us, or Matt and I sit in front of his laptop and he programmes beats. It’s actually a pretty long process, but it works out alright in the end.

What has been inspiring you on the TTT stereo of late?

Tim Hecker, Springsteen, Cabaret Voltaire, and John Foxx.

We’re pretty excited to be putting you guys and Tall Ships on in Bristol at the end of May. For those thinking of coming to the show, what should people expect to see?

Big Geoff ’s mop of curls!



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Right-click here to download new single 'Cramm' now

http://www.myspace.com/threetrappedtigers

''Crack and Havana Present....Three Trapped Tigers and Tall Ships, at Start
The Bus on May 27th.''

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