Showing posts with label tiger belly. Show all posts

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Video: Touerttes - Tonight

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Album Review: Tourettes, Tiger Belly

By Scott Kara

6:30 AM Thursday Sep 29, 2011

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Artist Tanja Jade aka Misery and Dominic Hoey aka Tourettes. Photo / Supplied

While Auckland rapper and poet Tourettes (real name Dominic Hoey) is not so much of a smart aleck on fourth album Tiger Belly, he's just as clever, cutting, and hilarious.

Whether he's mouthing off about only having two emotions ("boredom and lust"), big upping himself on Everybody Loves Tourettes (and rightly so too), or at his deadpan best about not being a great swimmer ("I saw Jaws too young."), he is one of local music's top wordsmiths with a refreshing say-it-like-it-is roughness to him.

And with a vast and adventurous palette of music and beats (that could stand up as a record on its own) courtesy of Saan Barratt from country band the Vietnam War, this album is more than a worthy follow up to his eerie, often aggressive, and funny - albeit sadly under appreciated - 2009 offering Who Said You Can't Dance To Misery?.

There are rowdy party highlights like the pulsing dynamism of So Happy, the brutally frank Drug Problem (akin to a hip-hop honed psychedelic Pixies), and opener Tonight is a weird and wonderful mix of frenzied 60s pop, steely surf music, and shouty Beastie Boys back when they were more punk than hip-hop.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Under the Radar Review Tiger Belly

Tourettes - Tiger Belly

Tiger Belly

Tourettes

Round Trip Mars
8 / 10

27th September 2011

By Scott Nicolson

Tourettes is one of New Zealands’ most exciting musical entities. Entity is an appropriate word considering the nature in which he ‘gets around’ the musical landscape. From Punk band beginnings, to Fifth Floor in Wellington, to Hip Hop as part of the Breakin Wreckwordz collective, to spoken word performances in recent years, and guest appearances on other artists’ tracks for the best part of a decade – Dominic has certainly ticked some boxes.

Tourettes has also released an album every 2 years since 2005, ‘Tiger Belly’ is his first for the Round Trip Mars label. The first taster was the solid (and somewhat hilarious) ‘Inside My Head’. It has a real punk vibe with live guitars, bass and drums. This no doubt has to do with those involved with the making of this album. Tiger Belly’s album credits include Saan Barratt from The Vietnam War handling all the music and arrangements, and Karl Steven of Drab Doo Riffs’ tracking and producing all the vocals as well as mixing the album. The influence of these two on ‘Tiger Belly’ is obvious in regards to the backing track instrument choices and the overall feel of the album.

To my mind, Tourettes has always been from the dark side of the force, and this album is no exception with the subject matter. Bordering on bleek at times, - ‘Caspa And Alice’ – a sad tale of love, confusion and loss, to the downbeat vocal with a sublime looping melody of stand-out track - ‘World War 3’ featuring Matthew Crawley on chorus vocal duties, to the slightly absurd but genius - ‘Everybody Loves Tourettes’. The latter features vocal snippets of network television news presenters discussing the merits (or otherwise) of Tourettes. That particular track epitomises the Tourettes ethos – equally self deprecating but shouting out those who detract.

Other points of interest are the Ryuichi Sakamoto nod on ‘Valentines For Vampires’, the regular input of group-like chorus chants on ‘Tonight’ and ‘Drug Problem’, waves rolling samples feature on ‘Sat At The Beach’ (and return again on ‘Caspa And Alice’). Spoken word references on ‘…Beach’ and ‘The Phones Ringing’ whilst ‘So Happy’ has the more Hip Hop production for a switch up early on.

Overall, Tourettes has made a very bold, and ultimately smart move bringing together a standout line-up of musicians and producers from different genres. Although the new album doesn’t his feature regular production partner Scratch 22, it does clearly show the man has exceptional dynamic diversity and versatility with his musical choices, and waxing lyrical - Tourettes is as sharp witted, topical, and informed as ever. Make no mistake, this is a Hip Hop record but ‘Tiger Belly’ is an album that is just as refreshing to the indie crowd.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Cheese On Tourettes

Tiger Belly by Tourettes

Posted by Cheese on Toast on September 6, 2011 in Reviews · 0 Comments

Tourettes returns with a new album – released, this time, on Round Trip Mars, and with all music written, arranged and produced by Saan Barratt (of The Vietnam War and Dirtbags). To me, and I honestly don’t know how Dom (Dominic Hoey is his other name) will take this, when / if he reads this, Tourettes is not so muchs a rapper or hip hop artist as he is he’s a folk musician and poet. At least, I mean, he’s not hip hop not as that term has come to mean in 2011. But, in fact, if you were to look at the original fundamentals of hip hop at it’s earliest incarnations – I think you could make a strong argument, based in those principles, that Tourettes is more hip hop than Kanye West and Jay Z combined.

Tourettes writes honestly and disarmingly; instead of posturing about being the baddest MF-er on the block, he’d rather explore the darker recesses of one’s psyche or admit that he can’t spell lettuce. (Dom suffers from dyslexia). Many of the songs here, on this record, to me at least, are poems more than they are raps – and this is accented by the musical accompaniment. Most obviously, the poem The Phone Is Ringing sits two thirds in and is my personal album favorite. In contrast to the short, succinctness of The Phone – with it’s minimal ringing soundtrack – clearly a spoken word poem – is Sat At The Beach – an opus-like poem punctuated with a dark distant guitar – calmly before a storm of screaming and squawling that’d I’d love to see re-enacted at any poetry recital to fuck shit seriously up. It’s intense.

The album opens with the prelude Tonight – a scene setter, a statement of intent, if you will. It rolls through your speakers with a sense of difficulty; with an awkwardness usually reserved for, well, for those of us who perhaps don’t fit in to things nicely. Tourettes assures us that just because he’s wasted, that doesn’t mean he’s wasting time. So Happy is sonically dark and ominous – with s tinned out synth that pulses over a low guitar fuzz.

Lead single Inside My Head sits centrally on the record; and it really is a perfect example of how smart and clever Tourettes songs are and how skilled an MC he truly is; his flow on these verses is genius-ly conversational; this is rapping so good that it’s unaffected to meet tempo, rhythm or meter – but it’s perfectly on point and beat. And his subject matter so eloquently expressed; smart and funny.

Caspa And Alice clocks in at nearly eight minutes and is a short story in rap form – poetry meets prose meets beats – and, oh my god, Caoimhe Macfefin (Heart Attack Alley, Drab Doo Riffs) sung chorus is like warm satin as it washes into the song only twice.

The unfamiliar listener might be a little surprised by the guest vocal and guitar on World War 3 – Matthew Crawley; but anyone who knows either man will know that they are mutually massive fans of each-others art. Matthew’s voice is wonderfully heartbreaking, warm and fragile.

Every time I listen to Tiger Belly I find a new favorite song – and every song becomes a new favorite at least two-or-three times; I get the sense that this shall continue as I fail to get tired of this record. I love you, Tourettes. (Now let’s all go have group sex). - review by Andrew Tidball