#tiger moon

[missterious-figure]

Tiger Eclipse pls? Also, can we see them as cubs???

Okay! Here you go!!!

As for the Sun, Moon, and Eclipse as cubs, have this little sketch of them loafing!

[thetigers]

[dustedmagazine]

Insomnia Brass Band — Crooked Alligator (Tiger Moon)

Photo by Dovile Sermokas

This boisterous jazz trio makes a lot out of a little, welding the low-end honk and blare of baritone saxophone and trombone to a clattering continual explosion of drums. The three musicians— Anke Lucks on trombone, Almut Schlichting on baritone saxophone and Christian Marien on drums—balance minimalist negative space with a raucous, collaborative interaction.

Last time out, for Road Works, Dusted observed, “There are always three different, but more or less congruent, musical ideas going on in these songs, a sort of hacky-sack of interconnected inquiry, in which each musician must be prepared to keep the tune in the air, regardless of the angle it flies in from.” That kinetic vibe defines Crooked Alligators, too, as does the sense that, for three people, this outfit makes an outsized racket. Insomnia Brass Band swaggers like a large ensemble but retains the nimble volatility of small one.

Crooked Alligator is nearly an hour long, but never dull. It jitters and honks and thunders in a constant state of reinvention. “Duke of Prenzlauer Berg” barks a staccato, high-kicking dance beat, the spare but celebratory architecture of drums and trombone providing a structure in which sax can squall free-form. But then, the sax flies back, integrating its own spattered cadence into the boxy interchange. It’s a marvelous combination of discipline and anarchy.

“Sunday Song” turns blowsy and lyrical, long sax blasts carrying jaunty flights of trombone lyricism. The title seems apt; it’s definitely a song, despite all the playful outbursts, and accessible enough for a Sunday working the crossword, sunshine pouring through the kitchen window.

Not so for pulse-quickening, cowbell jangling “Traces of Summer,” which runs on a faintly samba-like adrenaline. Here the trombone works out long stretches of melody, which the sax bursts and blasts exclamation points.

You may wonder why this Berlin jazz trio has fallen into the hands of one of Dusted’s least jazz-conversant writers, and the reason is: they asked. But more broadly, this trio has a bristling, punchy energy that’s more like punk than not, and it’s easy to like even if you’re not immersed in the tradition. All hail brass insomnia, percussive dislocation, baritone sax restlessness, and intricate interplay that these elements can create.

Jennifer Kelly

[dustedmagazine]

Insomnia Brass Band — Late Night Kitchen (Tiger Moon)

Photo by Alexander Beierbach

Late Night Kitchen by Insomnia Brass Band

“African Birdsong,” the opening track to this exultant album, bursts into flame in a pummelling drum solo, percussionist Christian Marien flying loose-limbed in abandon all over the kit in a way that might remind you of Gene Krupa. Here and elsewhere he knocks up samba, New Orleans funeral parades, classic jazz and rock-punk-afro-beat hybrids in his concentrated racket. He is soon joined by Anke Lucks on trombone and Almut Schlichting on baritone saxophone in a blurting, bleating staccato interchange that dances in a violent, complicated way. The three work in concert, but never in unison, always pushing in and stepping back, holding down foundational cadences and breaking off for terse, fluttery commentary. They fill in the stops in each other’s phrases without ever stepping over one another. There’s a laser-like precision in it that is all the more impressive because it comes on the fly.

It is all so complicated and full of sensation — yet at the same time supremely danceable — that you might be surprised when you find out there are only three of them. Insomnia Brass Band sounds like a cubist painting of an oompah band, noses jutting off in every direction, cerebral and off-beat, yet somehow capturing an eccentric, unexpected groove.

The three musicians have an egalitarian air. Any one of them could solo at any given point. Anyone could keep the beat, not just the drummer but often sax or trombone, and anyone could mix it up a little, jaunting in from a diagonal with the same phrase sideways, so that it becomes a counterpoint rather than a main theme. “In My Name” bustles with a factory-churned beat, all forward motion and bluster, stamping out the measures with steady aplomb, but also wrecking the joint periodically in squalling sax chaos, sardonic blurts of trombone and blast zone bursts of antic percussion.

Yet though the music is complex it also extremely accessible — it’s no accident that one of Dusted’s least jazz-focused writers got caught up in its insomniac groove. This band has got to be a monster live, and even on headphones Late Night Kitchen raises up a nonstop ruckus.

Jennifer Kelly

[literalturd]

I'll march right over and you'll march right back I'll drive up north and I won't come back

[feeshed]

Take me up a north highway Give me strength along the way Give me space and room to breathe I am myself now, wild and free

[fairycloudz]

196 and 189

196- eye colorblue!189- last book i readtiger moon by antonia michaelis

[craftlands]

*knocks on your door*

hello there sir do you have a second to talk about our glorious lesbian mafia overlord ichiyou higuchi