Tiga - 'Sexor' (PIAS) Released 06/02/06

Canadian DJ and serial remixer Tiga has notched up a mighty arsenal of dance productions over recent years. Probably still best remembered for his 2001 commercial smash ‘Sunglasses At Night’ with Zyntherius and his unforgettable take on Nelly’s ‘Hot In Herre’, amongst his lengthy list of credentials the man has also reworked tracks by the likes of LCD Soundsystem, Felix Da Housecat, Fisherspooner, Mylo and his close friends Scissor Sisters. With an impressive reputation preceding him, will Tiga win us over with a full-length of predominately self-penned and performed material?

Produced alongside the inimitable Soulwax and Swedish dance maverick Jesper Dahlbäck, naturally then ‘Sexor’ is brim with ideas and takes in many styles and moods, making for an interesting if slightly incoherent listen. The album is unequivocally at its best when it churns out killer dance floor moments. The collaboration with Scissor Sisters’ trés flamboyant Jake Shears, ‘You Gonna Want Me’, shouldn’t really work but is a powerhouse of juicy electro grooves and juxtaposing vocals. The brilliant but all-too-brief ‘High School’ bounces alongside to a simple hook custom built to ignite dance floor hysteria, the brooding acid-fried ‘Pleasure From The Bass’ slowly eats into the psyche, while the finale ‘Brothers’ is an inspired snippet of camp dance-pop. Better still the fan-fookin-tastic ‘Louder Than a Bomb’ fuses dextrous raps with tough techy beats to create the album’s highlight.

However, for all its inspired moments, there are some troughs (curiously for the most part not penned by himself). His plaintive take on Nine Inch Nail’s ‘Down In It’ is all too like Depeche Mode for comfort, the cover of the Talking Heads’ ‘Burning Down The House’ is just wrong, while the sub-eight-minute ‘Good as Gold’ meanders, meanders some more and then doesn’t really go anywhere intriguing. Contributing to a slight feeling of disjointedness too, the tracks are seemingly erratically placed together and interrupted by humorous but pointless interludes like the nonsensical ‘Flexible Skull’. Yet really these are only minor niggles and shouldn’t detract away from the point that with ‘Sexor’s lofty peaks, Tiga can definitely cut it as an artist in his own right.