Welcome to the first addition of the Cloud Toy Blog

111 by eleven tigers

My first offering for you on this musical odyssey is an album from a man who I've been following for many years now. Having already won acclaim from peers such as Mary-Anne Hobbs, Lithuanian born producer Jokubas Dargis set out to record and album in 111 days. 


The result is a truly phenomenal achievement. The sense of space that is created is not unlike the beautiful arid, soundscapes of Burial, yet Dargis is not afraid to explore the more colourful and industrial sounds of the spectrum. The result is something rich in depth and texture, life and colour, which gently coerces the listener into picturing and realising unseen, mystical worlds.


The heavily layered bass lines in this album provide a smooth, rolling texture to the sound and the use of a female, folk vocal throughout is inspired and adds another beautifully mystical, yet eery aspect to the piece. Couple these features with glitchy, distorted percussion that is peppered with syncopation and changes of pace and you get a truly moving musical experience. 


One of the many highlights of the album for me is the track Time, for the reasons stated above, but it's hard and in many senses wrong, to pick out a single track for praise. Like any decent album (this is why I despise the shuffle function on the iPod) this is designed and best appreciated as one long piece of music. 


The album was recorded live in this way (demonstrating further the incredible talent of this young musician) and it is therefore the way in which it should be best interpreted. You can see this awe inspiring process for yourself at http://eleventigers.net/. You can also grab your free copy of the album here (although I encourage you to donate), which can only serve to further highlight how genuine the intentions of this man are.  


I will be featuring more from Eleven Tigers as the weeks go on as there is so much talent, maturity and ambition here. In the mean time http://soundcloud.com/eleventigers should provide you with your Eleven Tigers history lesson; there are plenty more smoking tracks available for your audio inhalation.