tied & tickled trio

Electronica / Jazz

berlin / munich, Germany

Billboard

There's no brass section this time. There are no jazz-thetics, in that special sense how the Tied & Tickled Trio has made them audible, at least in German (and worldwide) guitar-based underground. As well as in an electronic musis scene of the late 1990ies and the first years of the 21st century. I don't want to talk about indietronic here. Even though the term "indie" still matches the Tied & Tickled Trio. Concerning attitude and disposition, concerning the delimitation of sounds, the renunciation of expectations - also with regard to themselves.
"Aelita" - their latest release earlier this year - starts beyond all expectations. Initially, only one concert was planned, at the Hausmusik festival in Munich, in October 2006. A set was played there, that was extemporized for the most part, setting out into a
past idea of how a future could be. A melancholy journey, visiting former visions, futurism, science and science fiction. "Chlebnikov", the title of one of the tracks, is named after the poet of the Russian Avantgarde who died of starvation within the crisis of the 1920ies. "A rocket debris clouds drift" is the name of another one. A reallydark side of the moon. Not what Pink Floyd once called so.
The concert's remains were traces of euphoria - within the audience as well as within the band. That's why this album exists today, created only in three time three days. Recording, arranging, mixing. As rough and open as possible and still very concentrated, minimal, melancholy and excessive. Slow and well-travelled dub, echo-chamber-music, the orbit as sounding space.
From a drums-only-duo in the mid nineties to the electronic-to-jazz-orchestra with up to a dozen musicians during the last few years the Tied & Tickled Trio has grown to an open source project with many different sounds but one solid attitude. There is a universe full of influences: Sun Ra, John Coltrane (,,Africa Brass"), Herbie Hancock (,,Sextant") and Pharaoh Sanders, minimal electronics, early dub... And there is a band that listens very carefully to its own sounds that guided its way.
On "Aelita" and the follow up tour in summer/autumn 2007 The Tied & Tickled Trio are Caspar Brandner, Andreas Gerth, Markus and Micha Acher and Carl Oesterhelt.