Tiger - Shining In The Wood/ Where's The Love?

Fantastic, frequently overlooked abrasive nineties art-pop 

Label: Fierce Panda
Year of Release: 1996

By 1996, when both music critics and record company A&R people began to realise that Britpop was looking tired, there was much head-scratching about where British alternative rock could go next. It was pretty clear that if the public were to remain interested, either a stylistic shift had to happen among the big players, or a new wave of noise had to sweep in.

As it happens, both things occurred. While Oasis were content to continue much as before, Blur and Pulp began to branch off and take different and somewhat more difficult winding paths, and waiting in the wings were also a veritable shit-ton of eccentric, arty or just downright trashy and punky dinmakers.  Bis had the cute teenage looks and angular pop tunes by the bucketload, Kenickie a rawer, earthier, wittier edge, Urusei Yatsura the discords and power, and Tiger the... er, well, it's hard to quite summarise where Tiger were coming from in a couple of words.

Borrowing droning analogue keyboard sounds from Stereolab, the scattershot lyricisms of post-punk, the anthemic choruses of Britpop and the screeching madness of Sonic Youth and Pixies, Tiger were only ever going to sound like a barnful of suburban oddballs, and it's truly astonishing to realise that they actually picked up radio airplay and mainstream television appearances in the nineties. In virtually no other period of British music history would this have been allowed.


Much mocked by the press at the time for their deliberately anti-fashion stance - mullets and quilted jackets, while slightly hipster by today's standards, were seriously contrary wardrobe choices in 1996 - and their complete lack of willing to tone down their sound in an attempt to score a proper hit, they've largely been ignored since for no good reason beyond the fact that they don't accurately sum up anyone's memories of the mid-nineties. On a recent trip to Berwick Street in Soho, I found a pile of their singles in a second-hand record shop for £1 each, and promptly rescued them.

This, their debut, is the band at their roughest and most ragged, filled to the brim with punky call and responses, some magnificent musical droning, and a tune that seems to truly bounce off the walls. Moreoever, they don't quite sound like anyone else either of their particular era, nor groups who had gone before. It's easy to dissect their influences and list them, but the resulting brew feels positively unique.

Formed in Princes Risborough by Julie Sims and Dan Laidler - the former apparently met the latter at art college, and was correctly convinced his naive tape recorded song ideas could be created into something fresh sounding - the group, like most of their peers, managed a few brief months of mainstream media exposure before plummeting back underground again. The kids of 96 might have worshipped characters as unlikely as Jarvis Cocker, but they weren't quite ready for Tiger's angular musical slaps, and their appearances on breakfast television and daytime Radio One appeared to illicit bafflement rather than result in proper success.

Still, after "Shining In The Wood" was released and they went on to sign to Island Records, some astonishing singles followed, including the truly fantastic "Race" and "On The Rose", and the downright worrying "Friends". Their LPs "We Are Puppets" and "Rosaria" are arguably slightly uneven, but also worth owning and treasuring nonetheless. Seldom does a noise like this one come along, and surely a major reappraisal for the group is due soon.