“THE LOWER THE TUNING, THE BIGGER THE RIFF!” “I’D JUST PLUG-IN, TWIST KNOBS AND SEE WHAT SOUNDED GOOD!”
TIGERCUB LEADER JAMIE HALL IS A BIG GUY – SEVEN FEET TALL – MAKING A BIG NOISE WITH PLENTY OF “HARD, SAUSAGE-Y SLAB!”
gleefully on this uncertainty to create a noise not unlike a new driver with dodgy clutch control lurching down the road. Clearly, this album is never going to leave you uncertain where you are.
Following that pandemonium comes Marlene Dietrich, which opens with Greep’s plucked extended chords on nylon strings, as he switches from the opener’s laconic spoken delivery to crooning. It’s a beautifully realised jazz interlude that is abruptly met with more rhythmic trickery from the next track, single Chondromalacia Patella. Greep again opens, sounding a bit like an indie rock Hendrix. His incredibly syncopated accents will leave you wondering what the time signature is. It’s actually a half-time shuffle in 4/4, but Greep’s offbeats do their best to persuade you otherwise. As the song settles down, he finds a warm tone in both his voice and guitar that build into increasing levels of fuzz madness.
Slow kicks off with yet another rhythmic allusion, with the entire band crunching out quarter note triplets, with a rest on the last note in each group of three. Without context, it sounds like the tempo has changed entirely when they settle into the regular groove. Drummer Morgan Simpson syncopates his snare hits, too. At 1:17, Greep explodes into a freewheeling guitar solo, with interplay from Simpson building the dynamics and excitement.
With something approaching a verse-chorus structure and vocal melodies leading the way, Dethroned is borderline conventional. The verses are driven by a rhythmic pattern on a single note, augmented with delay. Greep employs reverb soaked, distorted extended chords, and urgent 16th-note scratching. Just when you think you’re in indie rock territory, an abrupt sequence of ascending jazz chords at the halfway point gives way to an irresistible half time groove – black midi are never predictable.
Ascending Forth, the epic conclusion, opens with a moment of peace made all the more beautiful for the chaos it follows. The acoustic guitars sound gorgeous, delivering an expansive bed in 3/4 time for Greep’s soaring vocal line. The music here is shamelessly pretty, building to an earnest climax without rhythmic trickery. Then at 3:23, there’s a moment where a guitar is jarringly out of tune. With a band like this, it could equally be a deliberate artistic choice or just something those chose to leave because it was an otherwise great take.
Black midi must be an immensely fulfilling band to be part of, at every moment, every instrument is building the overall sound. It always sounds like a team effort, and never like a vehicle for any one musician’s ego. Cavalcade is a testament to the power of live music, just as the world is ready to see it again.
Jonny Scaramanga
Jamie Hall grew up listening to everything from rave music to his father’s classic rock records, and on Tigercub’s new album As Blue As Indigo, he takes a heavy-handed approach to creating heavysounding riffs. As he puts it: “I hammer the living sh*t out of my instruments!”
What does the new record say about you as a player today?
This new record is not afraid to be heavy metal and to have a bitmore flair and flamboyance with the playing. The whole thing has been a reappraisal for me of who I am and what I’m about: I like heavy riffs and I like good guitar players - and there’s nothing wrong with that!
For you, what makes a good riff?
The lower the tuning, the bigger the riff! There’s also a relationship I have with 3/4 timing over 4/4. When you start to go into that area rhythmically, good riffs start to happen and when you drift in and out of those time signatures you get new-sounding, challenging patterns that don’t feel stock and out-ofthe‑box.
How low are we talking with these tunings?
As low as it can possibly go - drop G# and really far down to G. I put really thick strings on - 13s or 14s - and that’s when the physicalities of the guitar start to change. When all the strings are dead slinky but really thick, there’s cool overtones and harmonics that happen.
Oscar Lang is a one-man writing, recording and producing machine. His debut album Chewthe Scenery delivers layers of jangly dream pop, strident fuzzy riffs and plenty of earworm melodies. But as he admits of his guitar playing: “I’m not as good as I should be!”
What guitars are your favourites?
Originally, I started playing because my Dad had a spare Squier Stratocaster that his mates had got him for his 50th birthday. So I started with that - a really simple red Squier Strat. It was on all of the old recordings and I still kind of love how it sounds. It sounds so cheap and sh*t that I just love it! Right after I signed, I bought a nice Fender Telecaster called Mary. She’s lovely! She’s got a matte, light blue finish. Recently I got a Fender Jazzmaster - a cream one. That one’s called Murphy.
What’s your amp of choice?
I bought a Fender Twin... I think! One day before tour I was like, ‘I need a proper amp’, because for ages I would just DI my guitar and do amp simulations, which I still really like. I think you can actually get quite a good sound out of a Di-ed guitar if you know what to do.
Did you rely more on pedals or plugins to get the diversity of tones we hear on the album?
It’s a mixture of both. I’ve never had a proper pedalboard, but there’s a few defining things that I’ll use. I have an Electro-harmonix Memory Man - I’m big into delays - and we used a lot of [producer] Rich Turvey’s pedalboard, including a Strymon Big Sky. I actually had a Zvex Lofi Junky, which I’ve now lost but I loved the sound of that! But yeah, I’d just plug-in, twist knobs and see what sounded good!
Being a self-taught multiinstrumentalist, do you have any unusual techniques as a result?
I think as a result I’m not as good as I should be, really! What I would do is take a few lessons to get me started, then teach myself by learning songs that I liked. I would like to be a little more technical, but it is what it is. As long as I can write a song with it, it’s fine!
Ellie Rogers