No Fantasy Required

Sealed brand new double album with free digital download. Made in the EU.

Tiga is techno’s answer to Jep Gambardella, the debauched aesthete of Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty. It’s a persona – cultured, jaded, naughty – at odds with that of most club DJs, as is the fact of delivering a performance at all. In his 41st year, however, Tiga is going strong, and has here completed a trilogy of albums that articulate his idea of refined hedonism. The spine of this album sets the controls for the heart of the dancefloor, with dirty electro-inspired grooves. Elsewhere, as on Make Me Fall in Love or Tell Me Your Secret, the formula is more straightforward electropop. Both styles are accompanied by lyrical one-liners that riff on club refrains of old – “make me fall in love with the music, make me fall in love” – or naff pick-up lines – “I don’t need a calculator, to know I’m going to see you later”. Delivered deadpan and then filtered in odd directions, they add a degree of distance, a feeling that Tiga is commenting on the world he lives in as much as contributing to it. When he attempts a more straightforward piece of romantic longing, it doesn’t really hit the mark. For some, Gambardella was too mannered, but he was curious and stylish – and so is Tiga.