3 out of 5

Label: Africantape

Produced by: C;mon Tigre

There was some confusion when someone was examining my copy of C’mon Tigre, expressing surprise over my interest in the band, with some further conversation clarifying a mixup with Le Tigre. Setting aside why my listening to the ‘Le’ edition of this band name might merit surprise, there was some further comment of C’mon Tigre’s noisiness – attributed to their free jazz elements – and then later acknowledgement of their inoffensiveness during an electro beat-y part of a song.

Somewhere in that mix of reactions is a kind of summary of C’mon Tigre’s review: mixed up with other bands for no real definable reason; eliciting variable responses somewhere between uncaring and annoyed.

…Which is some really shitty backhanded stuff to say for an album that is, I think, mostly pretty interesting – and more melodic and memorable than first glances might afford – but I am unfortunately aligned with the spirit of the backhandedness.

C’mon Tigre is a duo of musicians who seemingly want to remain nameless, but love giving over their albums (still being made as of this writing) to tons of named contributors from around the world, adding in mellotrons, and glockenspiels, and “human beatboxing” and so on. That might call to mind a Gorillaz-type operation, but we’re without a strong Damon Albarn-ish ringleader, or a strong album – or even song – that would help define an m.o. before handing it over to a team. So instead, a good touchpoint is, if not Le Tigre, that approximate era of indie music that gave us Elephant 6ers and lots of Thrill Jockey post-Tortoise groove jazz pop: albums with a lot of musical theory and talent backing them up, but producing a kind of mish-mash of noodly pleasantness.

I think when you first hear this kind of stuff it can be somewhat revelatory in a way, combining soft melodies and vocals with indie rock angularness without pushing across some kind of angsty barrier; music that is almost perfect for the background without being background music. Different subgenres adapted this trend in their own ways, but as we proceeded towards the end of the physical music era, a second (or third) wave of indie rock occurred that reblended a lot of styles together, resulting in groups like C’mon Tigre, who do a lot with their sound – this is Alt-J weirdo folk with total spasms of free jazz and post-rock in there – but almost purposefully stray from doing anything too definitive. The extra dose of collaborators then just makes it feel like a jam session.

On subsequent albums, C’mon Tigre stuck with a lot of their sonic basics, but focused things a bit more. This debut is certainly of the same DNA, and though I think I’ve hardly said anything good about it, its inoffensiveness is its sneaky key: you can go on repeat with this thing and get its general vibes stuck in your head. I tend to prefer when those vibes resolve into songs, but I can also imagine someone discovering this the same way I was lucky enough to hear the early 00s stuck that inspired it, and getting their mental hooks into a new way to break apart melody and music.