causing a tiger
Causing a tiger is always an unpredictable affair, especially in dreams. The tiger may have the head of a fish, or the tail of a mouse. It may be green, or it may be covered entirely in buttons. In these inspirations and aberrations, all is revealed and nothing is sacred.
“As I sleep, some dream beguiles me, and suddenly I know I am dreaming. Then I think: This is a dream, a pure diversion of my will; and now I have unlimited power, I am going to cause a tiger.”
— Jorge Luis Borges
The band Causing a Tiger never rehearses, but plays a rigorous, improvised set that at times sounds like devotional meditation, other times like a travelogue written while dreaming, and still other times like it might have been ripped from the pages of the American Songbook. Their live shows have been few and far between, but like meeting an old friend, they pick up right where they left off. Their goal is to test the boundaries of expression and logic. Regardless of the tenor of the musical moment, be it gross or delicate, subtle or squirmy, they remain accepting and exposed to anything forged in the heat of sonic congress.
Their first eponymous album is a sonic travelogue weaving together field recordings made while on tour with other bands, and subsequent musical studio retro-fittings and justifications. Their second album, How We Held Our Post, is a collection of songs they improvised in a scant few hours into three microphones in an old farm house on Cape Cod.
Causing a Tiger is:
MATTHIAS BOSSI – KEYBOARDS, PERCUSSION, DRUMS, VOICE
SHAHZAD ISMAILY – BASS, GUITAR, PERCUSSION, ELECTRONICS, VOICE
CARLA KIHLSTEDT – VIOLIN, VOICE
“Causing a Tiger… went off the deep end in all the right ways… Textures were intermingled beautifully, and this group truly improvised as a collective… They created their own musical world in which they were all-powerful and which the rest of us could merely observe. It was quite an experience.“
— Mathew Cmiel, New Music Box