Artist of the Month: Tiga

Where to start with a profile on Tiga? Perhaps his childhood and teen years in Goa surrounded by hippies, trance parties, and endless stretches of beach. Or his relocation back to Montreal at the age of 16 where he lazer-focused on music, galvanised by the electronic sounds emerging from Detroit, New York, and Chicago. 

Or should we start with his contribution to Montreal’s underground? The warehouse parties he threw with a group of friends [that] quickly built a cult following. Or his co-founding of SONA in 1996, a legendary after‑hours club where artists like Fatboy Slim, Carl Cox, and Paul van Dyk made their Quebec debuts.

Maybe it’s better to focus on Tiga’s own musical journey. The house, techno, and acid house sets he played during Montreal’s underground awakening – including the wildly ahead-of-its-time 1992 online rave concept called Eclectricity (that didn’t do as well as he’d hoped. The world wasn’t ready). 

There’s his early experimentation with production, his transformation of DNA Records in 1994, and the launch of his label Turbo Recordings in 1998. And let’s not forget his 2001 breakthrough international release – a remix of Corey Hart’s “Sunglasses at Night” – which catapulted Tiga into the heart of a new movement called electroclash. Or his 2002 mix album DJ-KICKS released on !K7 Records which sounds like it could legitimately have been released yesterday.

His early work encapsulated a moment in cultural history so vividly a whole generation of new artists actively replicate its energy today. The Dare, Confidence Man, blaketheman1000. Of course, they’re drawing on Tiga’s peers, too – LCD Soundsystem, Peaches, 2ManyDJs, Soulwax – but listen to Tiga’s 2006 debut album Sexor and his influence on the current musical landscape is undeniable.

He’s released two solo albums since then – Ciao! In 2009 and No Fantasy Required in 2016, both accompanied by extraordinary promo videos. In each, Tiga is being interviewed. His answers are absurd, ironic, arrogant, caricatures of the new breed of diva electronic music artist. He harnessed humour and persona before TikTok even existed. At one point he claims he invented Crocs.

“How do you describe your relationship with your fans?” Asks the interviewer in Ciao!.

“Solid questch,” responds a suited Tiga, taking a sip of water. "My job is to descend from above and sprinkle the crowd with unimaginable spices.”

Okay, this is where we’ll start: an afternoon in late March 2026, a few weeks ahead of the release of Tiga’s fourth solo album HOTLIFE. I have him on video call.

He’s at home in Montreal, angelically framed by a bright window, wearing a C.P. Company hat and thick-rimmed glasses. He doesn’t look quite as MySpace as he did in the ‘00s and ‘10s, but he’s still instantly recognisable. It’s the sharp, engaged blue eyes and the ray-like smile that cracks out whenever he finds something amusing. I ask him what he’s been up to over the last decade.

“Great question,” he says, looking thoughtfully up and left. "You know, the last ten years were a little bit weird. There was COVID, lockdown, a lot of disruption and a lot of change. It doesn't feel like a regular decade. And in that period, what did I stay busy with? I'm always kind of tinkering.”

Tinkering with Turbo Recordings, or in the studio with Priori, Patrick Holland and Hudson Mohawke, or on this album, which has been three years in the making. He first teased the lead single “ECSTASY SURROUNDS ME” in 2023.

“I do everything much slower than I used to,” Tiga says. “Three tracks were holed over from older sessions. “HOT WIFE” I made with Boys Noize quite a few years ago, “FRICTION" was a demo I started a really long time ago. But the common factor is that for whatever reason, it didn't feel like the time to release them.”

This 12-track album is Tiga condensed to his purest form. It’s all wheat, no chaff. All answers, no questions. Every element’s been stripped back to its bare bones to reveal a 100-carat Tiga, shiny, show-stopping, egg-like, flawless. 

It’s deceptively simple but make no mistake: this takes work. “HIGH ROLLERS” is a good example: 4:4 beat, acid bassline, Tiga’s irresistible lyrics. It hits. You can’t stop listening. But how does he keep a track this simple so compelling? 

The answer is movement – Tiga’s tracks move – and knowing when it’s time to add exactly one additional element. To achieve this, Tiga’s honed three rare skills that any artist would kill for:

The first: quick-decision making.

Indecision is torture.

The second: knowing when something is done. 

It’s the ultimate skill.

The third: not listening to others. 

I'm the Michael Jordan of saying no to people.

One example is Tiga’s most famous track, “Bugatti,” released in 2014. “For some tracks, the strength is the vibe,” Tiga says. “That’s all they have. Most people, including my manager, thought “Bugatti” was just too simple and stupid and it wasn't finished. And I was like, no, no, this is finished.”

With HOTLIFE, Tiga’s decision-making process was instant and cut-throat. He calls it Absolute Brain Freedom. “A combination of saying no, making decisions, and playing. Not like a DJ, like a kid. When you just don’t care. Free to pursue an idea regardless of how stupid it seems.”

To put it bluntly, Tiga’s in his No Fucks Given era. This album is exactly what he wanted to make.

“I really wanted to put my personality quite bold in front,” he says. “I wanted the vocals to be upfront. I was personally quite bored with a lot of the music I was hearing. I wanted the attitude to be front and center, you know?”

Beneath the surface, there’s an existential element to HOTLIFE. He doesn’t like to dwell on it but Tiga got struck down by long COVID and, for a significant period of time, could barely think. He’s named it vibe fog. “I wasn't functional,” he says. “I lost it all mentally. Like, I lost everything. And obviously I live and die by my brain, I'm not a football player or something. Fortunately, it came back, and I rebuilt it all.”

That born-again creativity radiates out of HOTLIFE. He’s teamed up with a variety of artists – Boys Noize, Matthew Dear, Fcukers, MRD, Gesloten Cirkel, Paranoid London, Maara – but perhaps most remarkable is its consistency alongside his catalog. Tracks like Tiga’s “ECSTASY SURROUNDS ME” would quite happily sit on an EP alongside 2001’s “Sunglasses at Night” and make perfect sense. It has the same vibe. Just don’t call Tiga’s lyrics funny. 

“You wear a silk scarf when you walk down the street / I got a new hobby / I put silk on my body / call me,” he sings with Fcukers in “SILK SCARF”. 

“Butterfly / lollipop / cherry” he chants in between the kicks, snares and wubby synths of “CHERRY.”

Fun and playful? Yes. “But it should never feel ironic,” Tiga says. “It should definitely never feel funny. Whatever the impulse to make it fun, the finished product still has to be serious – like groovy or sexy or trippy. In that respect, my techno origins always take control. The music has to work from a dance perspective.”

Still, he’s unafraid to mess around with expectations. “I AM A DETROIT SUNRISE” is a seven-minute acid-techno track with a flute-like synth solo at its centre and it works beautifully.

But it is serious because this is music to get lost in. More than that – Tiga’s music soundtracks people’s lives, mine included. I listened to Tiga during my MySpace era in 2005; he soundtracked nights out at Cheapskates in 2006 when double vodkas cost £1. And he was omnipresent for my semester abroad in San Francisco in 2010. Someone (not me) broke a table dancing to “Shoes” at a house party in The Mission back when Four Loko still had the original recipe.

Tiga’s music is timeless and I tell him as much. Across the board, from the beginning, he’s consistently commanded respect. Perhaps because he’s stayed so true to his artistic vision, his inner compass never compromised.

“Thank you,” he says. “See, I care about that. That was a nice thing to say.”

He takes a moment to think.

“If you're the soundtrack to somebody's moment, you're always going to have a bit of respect from that person,” Tiga says. “I know because that's how I am. Even this morning, in my car, I was listening to a techno record that blew my mind 15 years ago. And that person will always be in this top category because their music moved me. That's it. And as long as you don't fuck it up by being an idiot or making horrible music or really selling out, then you’re okay.”

HOTLIFE, which feels like a fresh, new era while nodding to his legacy, will no doubt soundtrack many more magical moments.

“You know what era we're in? It's like in an action movie where I should have been killed off, but I wasn’t. The bullet passed just next to my heart, and I'm still alive, and I’m feeling good.” Tiga cracks a ray-like smile. “But they should really have killed me when they had the chance.”

Tiga's album HOTLIFE is out April 17 via Turbo Recordings / Secret City Records.

Get it on Beatport.