By: Ed Sprake
Three Trapped Tigers | website | facebook |
Released on April 1, 2016 via Superball Music
During my second live encounter with Three Trapped Tigers, I was told by our esteemed Editor that “you can always tell when TTT are playing, everyone’s obviously enjoying it, but no-one has the first clue what to do with themselves” which was absolutely true. The audience were vigorously vibrating, but there was no consensus. It was like someone had dropped a sonic mandelbrot set into the audience and I was watching the ever changing twitches of randomness explode from that centre point. I guess that this is what I have come to expect of Three Trapped Tigers. Three beings, not strictly of this plane of existence making absolute, perfect sense of the nonsensical.
I’ve listened to the band’s first three EPs collected as Numbers:1-13 and Route One or Die fairly extensively, and they have never quite lived up to that live experience, the first three EPs especially always sounding a little thin. The first thing I noticed about Silent Earthling is just how full and lush it sounds. The dynamics are there in full force and a lot of care has very clearly gone into the production.
It sounds wonderful.
Like how my memories of seeing them live in a field near Bristol (twice) sound in my head kind of wonderful. It also sounds like Vangelis and Autechre went out, got jacked up on pharmaceuticals and started throwing bricks at Boards of Canada while riding a random number generator.
There is a distinctive progression of sound here from Route One Or Die, there’s no apologies here, right from the off there are brash synths espousing past visions of the future, backed up by drum lines from Adam Betts that quite frankly, I wouldn’t believe were humanly possible if I’d not seen him play live. Throughout the whole album, there is a distinct leaning towards synths and melodies with the guitars blending into the mix, often more subtle than previous material, but also more integrated, layered, disguised almost. Sometimes to the point that I’m genuinely not sure which instruments are present or absent.
As with their previous material, the album provides the listener with a journey, a story to follow, ranging from sublime ambient passages to hard, driving rhythms. There are plots and sub-plots here, offering you multiple paths to explore. So much so that it’s almost like one of those novels where you can choose which plots to follow, changing the outcome, and making the story different on re-reading. More nuance. More feeling. More to discover with every listen.
The title track ‘Silent Earthing’ introduces the album in a suitably aloof manner with warp speed synths presented with post human detachment and precision. This is followed swiftly by ‘Strebek’, corresponding with an increase in urgency, as if you are being accelerated towards a point of danger where decisions need to be made. It then backs away into more sedate territory, winding down into a minute of soft melodies as you get closer to the end point where change is promised and certainly delivered.
‘Kraken’ certainly lives up to it’s name. A huge beast of a track delivering hectic, broken rhythms with brute force basslines and icy, malevolent synths, conjuring images of bleak landscapes filled with dispassionate, almost human armies wordlessly chanting, charging their weapons in anticipation of battle. I can only image that this will hurt when played live, it’s five minute length over all too soon, delivering an intensity I wasn’t prepared for, but was incredibly welcome when it arrived.
After building to a peak, the album changes tack once again, moving on to more subtle territory, ‘Blimp’ starting with precise, chiming analogue tones, in some ways reminding me of the analogue creations of Isan, before building into something more substantial. Smooth analogue basslines evolving into a staccato outpouring of riffs that might be guitar, or keys, or more likely both while bending time signatures into something that both makes sense and makes you question why and how.
‘Engrams’ is up next, the first publicly released glimpse of this release, along with a suitably other worldly video whose environment you can also immerse yourself in fully at https://www.silentearthling.com. ‘Tekkers’ however catapults me back in time to 1994 and Amber era Autechre with melodic, intelligently articulated compositions, but these are rapidly interrupted by guitars and laser beams. The original melody, constantly changing and being added to, themes are re-explored, but ever-changing, only similar from one passage to the next.
‘Hemisphere’ starts to bring back a more industrial feel with an unfamiliar 4:4 thud and slightly deranged, crunchy bass, before being overlaid with shimmering synths which deliciously add to the tension of the track, driving its evolution into something elegantly fragmented, shards of melody poking from the edges of broken beats, threatening to slice into the delicate balance created, although never quite managing to upset the equilibrium.
‘Rainbow Road’ is probably the track on this album I had most difficulty with at first, it’s structure being almost alien at times, changing in unexpected places, repeating in unexpected places, frenetic and utterly unforgiving, eventually devolving into noise and drums. As a conclusion, ‘Elsewhere’ serves to shift discordant back to harmonious, and returns frantic, on the whole, to tranquil, feeling like a well considered ending to an epic journey.
This album feels like how good Sci-Fi should sound. It tells a story that spans aeons and light years simultaneously. A chronicle of what comes next, yet also including recollections of a sometimes distant past. There is a seriously wide gamut of mood and experience across this album, it’s not always an easy listen, but I wouldn’t expect anything else of this band. It does, however have an impressive amount of drive, innovation and at times, sheer insanity. Personally I can’t wait to see them live for a third time in a field somewhere near Bristol where I will be vibrating randomly to the fractal rhythms along with another couple of thousand people, mesmerised by their post-human feats of noise exploration. As for Silent Earthling. get yourself a comfortable seat and strap yourself in for the ride, it’s very definitely worth the journey.
