Tied & Tickled Trio - Ea1 Ea2
(Drag City)
The 1990s saw the birth of two groups of interesting, electronic neu-wave
artists in Germany. One group consists of all bands that are somehow related
to Mouse on Mars. The other group consists of all bands that are somehow
related to palindromic supergroup To Rococo Rot. Tied & Tickled Trio (David
Pajo fans may remember them from the Post Global Music remix album) is of the
latter group.
Tied & Tickled Trio started off as a purely drums, bass, & electronics project.
By their 1998 self-titled debut, the band had separated themselves from the
rest of these German artists by the addition of a single extra instrument,
tenor sax as supplied by Johannes Enders. By adding sax, Tied & Tickled's
music is given more body and weight when compared to their purely electronic
counterparts.
The year 2000 finds Tied & Tickled moving further away from their electronic
origins and closer to the realm of pure 60s Blue Note jazz. The electronics
and textures are still there, but they are pushed further back into the
background, and more sax and brass have been added over top of them. The
question, then, is, is this a good thing?
By pushing the texture to the background, it and the sax are allowed to coexist
peacefully. In their debut, electronics would blick and bleep away until
Enders skronky sax cut in, interrupting the groove for a expansive, meditative
solo. Now, the sax need not interrupt; it can simply blend in and intertwine
itself with the textured background, making each of the songs on the album a
cohesive whole instead of a series of parts.
However, by de-emphasizing the beat and the bass, the music has lost some of
its immediate, first-listening appeal. After all, the groove is a large part
of what makes these neu-wave techno bands great. The added density provided by
the better blending of the instruments does much to make up for this and
provides benefit for each repeat listening.
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