The Tiger and Me

The Tiger and Me provide captivated audiences with folk longings, country thoughts, gypsy stylings, electronic suggestions and cabaret moments, through the use of male/female lead vocals, violin, guitar, piano, live loops and a spark that dances between the music and a provocative set of lyrics.

Hearing this duo's up-close voices transports you to one of the best kinds of after-the-party parties, when the poseurs have gone home and a few remaining friends congregate on the stairs, swap their stilettos for socks, and finally start telling the truth. This is one personal conversation we actually feel privileged to overhear: the duo tells arresting stories with their intertwining vocals and subtle arrangements. The result is something that takes "folk duo" and gives it an entirely new, entirely feline spin: the bastard love-child of Portishead and Ray Lamontagne. And they are lovely to look at with their soft shiny coats.

The duo started when Ade, after finishing his Honours degree in Composition, was working as a keys player for Tobias Cummings and the Long Way Home, Brendan Welch, and 72 Blues, among others, and found himself writing a stash of songs that were all dressed up but had nowhere to go. In a performance on a dusty, discarded guitar in an unfamiliar apartment to Jane Hendry, a singing voice was discovered where previously it was thought there was not one. Jane added her haunting, angelic voice to the mix and sparked the realization that this might be a tiger with legs. Their most popular song, the haunting "Alleyway", made its own way out of the abandoned guitar, performed as it was composed. Its Sunday-morning pace has you thinking that this is going to be a chill lullaby until you realise what they're singing about. This spark that dances between the music and an incongruous set of lyrics is there in many of the songs. It's this tension and frisson that sets the group apart from any predictable canon of folk duos.

"The Tiger and Me, a cute romantic and musical couple, delivered a very charming set of spare, violin-laced cabaret-pop...that struck the right balance between grounded and theatrical".
CBC (Canada)

"...an entwined and tight partnership. The Forsaken Few and Murderer in Uniform fly the album on towards the Paul Kelly/George airstrip, concentrating on a tightly compact and generally profound set of lyrics."
BEAT MAGAZINE (Melbourne)

"Elements of country rub up against a cabaret feel and some Gypsyish tendencies. Accessible but esoteric enough to still stand out."
NOW MAGAZINE (Toronto)

"a live looped circus act enters...making it hard to know what circus tent you've entered!"
BEAT MAGAZINE (Melbourne)

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