Canada's Electric Tiger Machine

New Wave / Electro / Punk

Bowling Green, OH

Who! - see all 4

Andrew Ranville - Synths / Keytar
Thomas Buckholz - Drums
Benjamin Robert Haehn - Bass / Vocals
Gary Setzer - Vocals

Performance - see all 87

Biography!

Artsy-new-wave, Dance Punk, Art-School-Electro, Nu New Wave. Call it what you like, but as is traditional with bands comprised entirely of artists, you never would have walked away from a Canada's Electric Tiger Machine show commenting on how technically skilled its members were. You were, however, sweaty from the involuntary convulsions the quartet delivered to your body. Canada's Electric Tiger Machine met at the School of Art at Bowling Green State University where Haehn, Buckholz and Ranville were students and Setzer was an Instructor. Formed in November 2003, their live shows were immediately heralded for their high-energy delivery and bizarre stage happenings. Their performances have been known to include projections, wigs, costumes, workout routines, large inflated garbage-bag structures, bad improvisational rapping, short-shorts and on-stage soy-dog eating. Their entire debut release, Translucent Transparent [Integrated], was written inside a windmill. Ranville, Haehn and Buckholz wove a catchy new-wave backdrop for Setzer's quirky scientist-like delivery. His froggy lyrical investigation steered clear of the traditional subject matter and exposed his research as a nationally known conceptual artist. With excessive amounts of sweat, error and lo-fi instruments that probably should have been thrown away, Canada's Electric Tiger Machine managed to inject a human-element into a genre renowned for cool plastic remove, merging the best aspects of electro and indie.

While C.E.T.M. disbanded in late 2005, the dance-punk ensemble recorded the EP, "Language is for Everybody," in 2006 to document the remainder of their live catalog and make the songs available to the public. Their first release since 2004's "Translucent Transparent [Integrated]," the new EP hits harder, yet delivers the same quirky electronic flavor that's unmistakably electric tiger territory. A dense web of semiotic theory, its spastic lyrical convulsions imbue the release with an intellectual ironic cool you would expect of a childrens educational album; but this one feels like its designed for grad students. These four tracks undoubtedly highlight this now defunct art school electro outfit in their prime.

It all started in Bowling Green, Ohio, yet the group has put the "geo" in geographical dispersion. Members now reside in Cleveland (OH), Chicago (IL), Tucson (AZ) and London (UK).