Soft Tigers: Unbridled sound

Fri 9th Nov, 2007 in Features

Canberra-based band Soft Tigers are not your traditional band.

In fact, Pal Gupta, Bucky Toller and Neil Harvey were so ‘disorganised’ when it came to becoming a band, something that was never really decided, but just happened. “It was never, ‘Lets write lots of songs and be a band,’ or anything like that,” says Pal.

As well as guitar, bass and drums, the boys have a number of other instruments, a lot of percussion, and as many samples as one could poke a stick at. “There’s drum machines, and a glockenspiel… we use the Casio a lot, the mini Korg, melodeon, all kinds of shakers and percussion instruments,” says Pal. “There’s the sound of a tree getting turned into pulp outside Bucky’s house one day, and… there’s so much stuff that we recorded and sampled, and as many instruments as we could get our hands on, we tried to use in some way. So mainly cheap, sort of, instruments… Anything that could make an interesting sound, we used.”

And this is evident on their debut release Gospel Ambitions. With as many as 4 genre changes in one song, it’s safe to say that Soft Tigers are in a league of their own, having been described as “a cordial-swigging kid flicking through the channels”. When asked how he would describe the Soft Tigers’ sound, Pal cant find a definitive answer. He settles with saying, “I want people to listen to it for what it is, and not what it sounds like.” Which is fair enough.

Influences? Pal cites, “modern bands and people doing crazy things,” such as Animal Collective, Architecture in Helsinki, Belle and Sebastian or Wilco, as well as Smashing Pumpkins (“I guess the influence is definitely there, but… I definitely don’t think we sound like the Pumpkins on too many parts of the album”), and even music from the 70s.

Soft Tigers have toured with the likes of Architecture in Helsinki, Jamie T, Tilly and the Wall and Expatriate, but thoroughly enjoyed their time with AiH. “We’re all massive fans, and when we were mixing our album, they were recording their album in the same studio… They’re lovely people. And they’re fun! We played basketball when we went to Melbourne, and they took us to their local courts… It was a really fun weekend, playing with them in Sydney and Melbourne. It was our first show in Melbourne, and we were all really scared.”

Some of the songs on the album, like Mr Ice Cream and M.A.R.I.A have been remixed. Pal’s favourite one is the Mr Ice Cream remix by DJ Waxmaster, a ghetto house producer from Chicago. “We got in contact with him on Myspace, and said, can you remix our song? He did this song that we listened to on a DJ set called Ghetto Shout Out ; it’s a really cool song… And we asked him to do an ‘ice cream shout out’ in that sort of vibe. And he did this really cool song, where he rapped and called out ice cream flavours.” And there are a few more remixes coming out on a Bang Gang 12” for remix fans. Pal is excited at this prospect. The reason? “being released on vinyl is more exciting than getting an album out, because watching it go round on a turntable is the most exciting thing…”

With three tunes from Gospel Ambitions, M.A.R.I.A, Mr Ice Cream and Karate on high rotation on Triple J right now, Soft Tigers can expect only good things from here onwards.