TIGROVA MAST – s/t

(CD, r.a.i.g.)

The Ruins had a big impact on avantgarde music, especially when technical abilities meet the will to expand music progressively and to find new forms to play. It must have been like this when John McLaughlin and Santana hit the stage shortly before the Seventies arrived and they drifted off into meaningless showing off of what they could do on their instruments, but leaving behind the reason why they are doing it. A self referential and meaningless spiral that slowly and painfully led to the death of fusion jazz and left two gifted musicians (and probably a thousand more with less talent) in the limbo of the Seventies music industry.

Still in its formative stages, the new way of doing things to achieve named goal is to leave out all unnecessary shit, arrange as tightly and complexly as possible and to rehearse, rehearse, rehearse until the recording day. Oh yes, and to rock as heavily as possible. Should we be calling that fusion noise rock then? I don’t think so, though there is something in there that gives a lot of sense to the manifold drum-guitar-bass-duos and –trios out there. No, not Lighting Bolt, who are a metal band, but a lot of those bearded instrumental monsters that sound so friggin virtuous but four out of five cases are shifting power chords acrosse the frets in high speed. Which may sound nice on CD but gets taft quite fast when played live. No names to be mentioned.

Tigrova Mast are not from Russia, they are from Croatia. Near to Austria. They have taken up the torch lit by Tatsuya Yoshida (who by coincidence mastered this album) and compagnons to carry the flame into every cellar and little room with a stage they might come across. The influence of eastern folklore melodies is to be felt here and there for some short times (and during the whole song called “Svinjska alka”, which probably means Swedish alcohol and therefore doesn’t count at all – and the Turbopop of various “Intermezzos” does not count because of their title), but other than that during the most parts this CD is just a freakish explosion of drum/bass-noise rock with many and many more instruments and sounds mixed in. The most prominent feature is that you never know what is around the corner, what is coming up next. It is not even a safe bet to expect something unexpected because that might not happen in the instant you expect it, even if it happens all the time. As a listener and not gifted with the same talent to memorize notes and melodies like the artists, you’ll be out in the cold for most of the time, if you don’t decide to not care and get into the steaming pit.

I can imagine Tigrova Mast powering up a seedy cellarroom room filled with punks into a frenzied moshpit and pogo area, but I can also imagine them playing to a jazz-refined audience of elder men (around fourty) with earplugs to protect their hearing and cups full of red berry juice. I’d rather not be at any of these concerts, because I am to old to mingle into a kicking horde of hardcore punks and I am much to distinguished and cynical to expose myself to a bunch of frustrated office workers dreaming of their past when they was still students and tried to liven it up every weekend and some weekdays too. I’d like Tigrova Mast to play my favorite pub with only a few people knowing about it.