My 2013: Tiga

Next up is Tiga.

For over twenty years, Canadian producer, DJ and radio host Tiga has been hustling his modern brand of electro-house across the globe. In planning to step back from his BBC Radio 6 show "My Name Is Tiga" to concentrate on his third studio album, the end of 2013 sees a hard-working and contemplative Tiga open up to THUMP UK; about why he loves Jai Paul, why DJs are deeply uncool, and how house music will save us all.

Right now I'm in the studio in Sweden, putting the finishing touches to my third album. Every time I do an album I tell myself "it'll be different next time"; that I'll do the classic Led Zeppelin approach, locking myself away to make it one complete, beautiful, conceptual project.  Inevitably though, it always ends up the reverse; bits and pieces of time here and there, start a track in one place, finish it three months later in another. When you make a track on the plane before the show and test it out on a crowd that night, you can get a reaction and adjust it. It's rooted in efficiency, rather than romance.  That's become just how things are done now, but it's the romantic idea I want to fight for.

That being said though, I'm making an album more for myself now than for anyone else. An album takes a lot of time and commitment. You really put yourself out there. It's such a singles driven world now but I just, love records. I can't really escape that desire. For me an album feels more real, even if that's just fairy tale real.

Speaking of releases, I freaking loved the Jai Paul record that came out (or leaked) this year. I was pretty blown away by it, actually. On a production level it's really creative and full of great ideas, but, you know, music is hard to explain. I guess we all know that feeling. The difference between great and good is so big. When you hear something great you just know it, to the point where it even influenced me in the studio. That record has all the things I like. It sounds new, it sounds quite groovy, it's sexy but not abrasive with it, and it has a sense of humour. Not "haha funny". I mean, it sounds like someone who's having fun. Someone really putting fresh ideas out there.

Other than that though, there has been something which I think has changed a bit this year. What started three or four years ago as "EDM" has now got it's American trademark. It's swept onto the front pages of every magazine and now Tiesto is on CNN. There's been a swell but, like every swell, there has to be a crash too - or maybe a descent. Sure, people are going to bitch about it, but what does come with all that is a whole new generation of kids going to the kind of parties they would never have found out about before "EDM" arrived en mass.

I remember I was like that. Kids want extreme shit. Some find heavy metal, some find punk, and on the electronic front that's usually hardcore, drum and bass, or electro, whatever. You want that action. Then, a lot of people drop out and you're left thinking, "What's next?", and the "What's next?" stage has always been house.  House always comes in and cleans up when the party is over. House music mops up all the chips.

There is one thing I'll say about how people digest music now.

No matter what, there are still people out there, at all times, who are truly, deeply, into their music. I think it's easy to get a bit cynical about how much content is out there, and it's easy to be cynical about the big glitzy commercial DJ world, but there are so many incredible people that are really digging. Especially kids that know so much about music well before their time, too. I think it does balance out in the end.

In a wider sense too, I think the club world is so ridiculously stupid. If you want to be a critic then it's a gold-mine, but at a certain point the joke is kind of on you because, guess what? These are just people going out to party, and these guys are just playing records. No one's pretending to be an author. No one's claiming to be a rocket scientist. Nobody's even claiming to be particularly cool.  It just, is what it is.  It means that I can't take what I do too seriously either. Don't get me wrong, I love making fun of shit. I really do. I've always been like that. I'm just too happy right now to bother.

The DJ world is so deeply uncool, so radically unsophisticated, so mind-blowingly commercial, so thoroughly un-revolutionary, yet I'm still out there DJing.  I love it, and have made my peace with it. The other thing to remember as an artist that journalists are people where this whole thing is just a slice of their life.  Some of my friends will get a bad review and feel shitty about it, and I'm like, "You know what, that bad review? That guy that wrote that bad review of you? In ten years, he might work at a fucking computer firm. He might not be a lifer. You're a lifer. This is your life."

I mean, don't get me wrong, I have my moments of weakness. Everyone does. It's a part of human nature that nowadays feels reinforced, because the internet makes it all so quantifiable. That's what's insane about all these magazine DJ charts; that it's somehow been made possible to rank people mathematically. When it's reduced to those terms it's human tendency to compare and the more specific it gets - with Facebook friends, twitter followers and chart rankings - obviously numbers beg to be compared. But that's even more reason to fight it. To fight it inside yourself.  That's a quality that will serve you well.