fucktheradio

FTR: So, great and venerable Tigermoth…

Tigermoth: Hey man.

How’s it goin’?

Really good! Had a really strange night though…

Why? What happened?

(shakes head) Oh man… fuck… man…

(laughs) You can’t just shake your head and swear, you gotta elaborate!

Uh… Crazy women.

This is going in the interview so be careful what you say!

(laughs) Exactly, I’ll leave it at that!

You are on your best behaviour- although you do have some exciting times ahead; the album release…

Yeah! Vinyl.

The vinyl is being released, what’s the story behind the name Traversing Karma?

Initially I had the idea of calling it ‘Traversing Karma Across Divides’.

It just popped into my head one day a few years ago and I knew I’d start making this album- I was piecing it together.

I just had this concept that had being evolving for a while- what my karma was… what ‘karma’ meant. Looking back on things and looking forward and seeing… I got this idea that sometimes what you think is good or righteous maybe isn’t, and people can get caught up in righteousness and soapboxing and I was really conscious of avoiding that and exploring what was right and wrong, who I was, and sort of navigating through that, you know? Without trying to be too self-righteous- just being true to myself without causing any detriment to anyone around me or anything like that. And it can be a difficult thing sometimes, you know?

And that spiritual sort of theme is something that not only comes through in the title and the artwork, but also the samples that you’ve used.

Yeah

Was that a very conscious decision on your part?

Not conscious in the way that before I start making the music I say I’m going to make ‘spiritual music’. I think that’s maybe just who I am, and so the sounds or whatever I gravitate towards, or the samples that I use are things that I’m drawn to. And the melodic ideas, it’s what I’m feeling I guess. So that’s going to come through, not consciously- it just is what it is.

So it’s just the way you feel it flows out of you?

Yeah

Has it always been that way?

I think my first album Underwater Beats… I started making before I went to live in Japan. When I got to Japan I really found a-lot of music that resonated with me. I found a-lot of spiritualism that I had been looking for that I hadn’t been able to find in Australia. So back then when I started on the first album, I’d make it, and then decide that’s not what I wanted it to sound like- I’d go back and add a couple of songs, take a couple out… It took me quite a while to create that channel where it could easily flow out. So I guess in the beginning it was much more conscious, but after I created that channel, and the more I did it- the easier it became.

Absolutely

You know, I’m making a-lot of music at the same time too, and a-lot of it’s not sounding like this… I just don’t let people her that kind of stuff.

Do you think then there’s room for an alias? Or is it just for yourself?

I’ll be releasing a hip-hop remix album under the Tigermoth name, but the alias I have been thinking for the more ‘club’ or ‘party’ type music stuff is ‘TJ Tigga’.

(laughs)

My nickname in school was ‘TJ’ or ‘Tiger’ so it really just chose itself.

You’ve got Traversing Karma on CD… there’s one in my car that I bump all the time. What was behind the decision to bring it to vinyl?

I released The 9^th Tiger on vinyl. The digital album was 18 tracks but I couldn’t afford to press a double record so I had to go back and choose 8 tracks that fit on a twelve inch.

I’ve been DJing for… I think I started in 2001, I was DJing for a couple months just to get some money on the side as I was a musician- jazz, funk, hip-hop musician when I was younger. A couple of months after I started DJing I bought an MPC… Back then I knew four people who owned an MPC- two of them lived in Adelaide and two of them lived in my house.  I kind of had a different route, these days some people start with beat making because it’s so easy to access the tools, but back then there wasn’t even Protools for home computers. So I grew up with DJs and vinyl was always really important to me. Ever since my first album I wanted all of my albums to be on vinyl. I was very lucky that before I started Tigermoth I already had labels who had released vinyl for other projects I was involved in- I came in with that ethic. I think it’s really important for the legitimacy of the music to have it on vinyl and stay true to my roots.

So I make music now with the album in mind, and knowing that I have to make 35 minutes of music for one LP. And I’ll keep doing that… One day if I get more money coming in I’ll make double LPs. I’m always going to release on vinyl. I did Duality and the Infinite and that nearly got picked up by a label in the states and that was also made for vinyl so I’ll be coming back to that and putting that out on vinyl too.

So the end game for you is to always have your music in that physical form?

For these kind of things. These albums are very focused with specific ideas as albums not just track after track, you know? It’s a narrative, almost like the album is one long track itself.

So vinyl is the best medium to do that on, you put a record on and let it play out without skipping through tracks or putting your iPod on shuffle or whatever.

Yeah man! I was talking to Aoi yesterday- he started making beats on computers and he’s come back over to using samplers and he was talking about how anyone can get a computer program these days and watch a YouTube video on how to make a beat. You can do it in a week and develop some sort of proficiency but the music that really resonates with me and always has… I mean I might hear a dope track but it doesn’t hit me in the way that my favourite albums have. Albums are things that I listen to over and over again, it grows every time and it takes a level of commitment from the listener and that’s how I grew up liking to listen to music and it’s the type of music I want to make as Tigermoth.

So you’ve got the release party for the vinyl coming up on the 23^rd, tell us about the line-up you’ve curated for that

Well, I’ve got Bevin Campbell from The Blend program on PBS 106.7FM. He has been very supportive of me for quite a-while now- going on three years. He is very under-rated as a DJ I think.

Absolutley! I was a guest on his show last Monday. The tunes he’s packing are phenomenal

Dude! Even as a radio host he’s one of the best in the world! I’ve always said that to him, like “Dude your voice is like butter man!” It’s made for radio, like they’ve cloned… or, you know…genetically modified classic radio DJs and put them all into Bevin’s voice or something (laughs). I hope he has a-lot of success with what he’s doing because you know, I know, and people who know, know what a great DJ he is. And as a selector, which is quintessential man. Super humble.

I’ve also got Able8 from Uncomfortable Beats. He’s been doing a-lot of things and is super supportive of other people, he’s had me down at one of his nights too.

And then after that we’ve got Amin Payne…

From the Condensed Milk collective

I really like what he does with his beat show… He’s coming from a similar place, although his music is quite different to me- he’s got a certain sensibility with it that I like. I think it might be his Iranian heritage and I think he was a guitar player when he was younger too. He’s part of The Operatives too and doing a-lot of great things at the moment.

So the people I’ve been picking are people who I think are doing good things and are also slightly different to me, I didn’t want a whole line-up of my-sounding music the whole night, I wanted it to go through waves.

It’s looking like a must-go gig for Melbourne beats…

I hope so! I’ll be there! (laughs)

In terms of curating a line-up of guys from different collectives, there’s a strong beats scene in Melbourne; coming from Brisbane yourself though, what’s the comparison?

They’re different cities you know? I was really lucky when I was younger that the guys who were a bit older than me were really doing cutting edge stuff worldwide. And I was fortunate to have that as my influence.

There are lots of people doing things in Brisbane; I’m not really up with it because I was always a bit of a recluse up there. What I was doing didn’t really fit into it at the time I think. Brisbane is kinda like a hippy town, a-lot of the beat scene is… how would I put it… the live band scene is more prevalent than beat makers in Brisbane, so the audience is still slowly coming around to it. It’s really hard to put a beats night on in Brisbane because people have been doing it for quite a-while but it’s hard to generate interest. It’s not like Melbourne man, people love the beat scene in Melbourne- they do in Brisbane too- but there’s not the same quantity of people into it that there is down here. It can be difficult sometimes to put nights on and get large numbers, and maybe there’s not the same quantity of quality that there is down here!

If you are lucky enough to be down in ‘burn city on the 23rd you can check out Tigermoth‘s vinyl launch party here

You can also peep his Facebook and his bandcamp.