Tied & Tickled Trio - ea1 ea2 rmx
(Morr Music)
At the nexus of jazz, rock, and electronica, the Tied & Tickled Trio is
all three things at once but also totally unsure of which one should be
their focus. The band will tell you, no doubt, that no element becomes their
focal point, but whether or not that rings true in how each song and album
sounds is entirely different.
The band's 1998 self-titled debut was very much an electronica album. Sure
there were improvisational elements from standard jazz instruments (like
Johannes Ender's "scholarly" tenor sax), but the resulting sound was closer to
pure electronica or post rock. It is difficult to separate that album's use
of sampling with live jazz instruments from works by Amon Tobin or Squarepusher
that are purely sample based but use predominantly jazz samples. If anything,
the work of samplers like Tobin ends up sounding more like true jazz than
Tied & Tickled's debut.
On the band's 2000 followup,
ea1 ea2,
electronica elements like beats and blips were pushed back into a
complimentary role. This added space gave Enders
and the brass instruments more room to roam, leading to longer improvisations
and a truer 1960s Blue Note-inspired jazz sound.
No matter how this step affected the quality of the Trio's sound, it can only
be considered a step forward for the band as it furthered the melding of the
group's jazz, rock, and electronica components where as their previous work was
more or less an either/or mixture of the parts. To create a truly great and
unique sound, however, the Tied & Tickled Trio must move closer to the
nexus of the three genres.
Perhaps this remix album, ea1 ea2 rmx, is a step in that direction. Giving
eight producers the very jazz sounding elements of ea1 ea2, the remixers have
created something that is much more of a jazz/electronica hybrid than the
original recordings. This is all very intuitive, of course (give remixers jazz
music and of course they will make it sound more techno), but it does mark
another positive step for the Trio, using the better blending of the genres
heard on ea1 ea2 but bringing it back away from that album's more authentic
jazz sound.
While, in general, remix albums are worthless, this one seems to make sense.
Even though each of the eight producers brings a different style to the mix,
the flow of the album is not affected as each adds little new sounds to the
songs, instead just reusing the existing elements from the Tied &
Tickled Trio's source material. It is one of the rare instances when a remixer
is like an extra musician, not ruining or nullifying existing material like
a Robert Rauschenberg erasure, but rather emphasisizing the brilliant moments
like a Warhol silkscreen study on machine repetition.
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