Me Mom & Morgentaler • Deja Voodoo • Mado Lamotte • Ellen Gabriel • Francine Pelletier • Ivan • Michael Pintard and amuna baraka-clarke • Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick • Pascale Bussières • Steve Galluccio • Michel Tremblay • James DiSalvio • Nicole Brossard • Édouard Lock • Mack Mackenzie • David Fennario • John Kastner • GrimSkunk • Cecil Seaskull • Gros Michel • Ian Stephens • Great Antonio • Harry Mayerovitch • Robin Spry • François Gourd • The Gruesomes • Tiga • Five poor neighbourhoods

Non-stop
to the top

Electro impresario Tiga looks back at breaking through the ionosphere

by RAF KATIGBAK

On September 30, hundreds of people all over the world checked their e-mails and found this curious message waiting in their inbox: “Hi, my name is Tiga... I need to get into the TOP 20 best DJs on the planet otherwise I will go crazy. Please support me... If you DO vote for me, I will pay you each $50, maybe... Love from Montreal, Tiga”

Rumours quickly circulated—has Montreal’s crown prince of electro gone mad? Was the excitement of releasing his latest single “You Gonna Want Me,” co-produced by Soulwax and featuring vocals by Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears, too much to bear? Maybe the strain of completing his long-awaited international debut album Sexor (due out in February) led to a complete mental malfunction. Was it possible that the 32-year-old DJ, producer, and recent remixer to the stars (including Depeche Mode and LCD Soundsystem) had become so media-hungry that he would trade cash for votes? And if so, where’s my 50 bucks?

Sadly, the answer is not so extraordinary. “When I wrote that, I wasn’t even thinking,” chuckles Tiga. “It’s not like I’m really going to pay anyone.”

Oh. Still, why would the normally reclusive local musical maverick suddenly seek mass approval? “You know, I always see those magazines and they’re always filled with those guys who I haven’t heard of—there’s no Hell, no Ivan [Smagghe], no Trevor [Jackson], it’s just filled with U.K. and American trance DJs, so I thought, why not? I’m aggravated because the people who make those lists are so lame.”

In make-up, but not made up

Of course, Tiga’s open frustration with the status quo will ring familiar to anyone who knows him. It’s the same restless, challenging spirit that has, over the last five years, propelled him further into the electronic music ionosphere with a flurry of dancefloor-devouring singles, remixes and mix albums. It’s the same dissatisfaction with the generic state of dance music that five years ago prompted him to put out his milestone mix CD Mixed Emotions on Turbo Recordings, a mix that earned him accolades the world over (including a Mirror cover story, written by Krista).

“I have only really good memories of that time,” he recalls. “That CD, and that exact time—perfectly symbolized by the cover of the Mirror—that little transformation, a little more into the artist’s territory, more into the character, with a bit more evolved concept, that was the beginning of everything good that happened for me since then.”

That was the point at which Montreal saw Tiga the DJ and promoter, once just a name on a flyer and voice on CKUT’s pioneering techno program The Tiga and Gnat Show, morph into Tiga the globetrotting international DJ superstar. But with its glossy, airbrushed look, complete with lipstick, makeup and hairpiece, it was an image switch that one could easily dismiss as a piss take. For Tiga, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Maybe it was a piss take on how boring DJs were at the time, or maybe even a jab at myself in the past. It was about how generic and mindless music had become. It was about getting excited about a new sound and running with it. I can’t hide behind irony, like, ‘Oh look, I’m a big star, here’s my fake persona.’ Of course there are things now—like that picture of me naked in the bath—that, when I think about it, I’m like, ‘Whoa! Was I smoking crack or something?’ But things like that, you can’t plan. Why am I naked in the bath surrounded by pink bubbles? I don’t know, really, but it comes from somewhere. Ultimately, if you do something honest and it comes from a place that you’re not even sure of, it’s gonna resonate on some level with some people, because it’s real. It’s like telling a good joke. If it’s funny, someone will get it, as long as it’s honest. When you run into real disaster is when it’s really contrived—even stupid people will figure that out.”

With rinôçérôse, Jeans Team, Panico and Rory Phillips at Metropolis on Saturday, Oct. 22, 8 p.m., $25