erik fox writes

Album write-up, 2021

2020 was a busy year for Tiger Beak. As the world screeched to a quarantined halt, he recorded and released four albums, traveled between Florida and Indiana to help his parents prepare to move, and developed his latest album, Night Lunch. 

Night Lunch is a rich, textured landscape of songs combining the influences of synthwave, chiptune and watching too much Farscape and Star Trek. Musically, it’s as if Andrew W.K. and Sonic the Hedgehog convinced The Cure to stay out late, party ‘til sunrise, then make an album capturing the emotions and highs felt through the night.

“Everyone who ever hears any Tiger Beak immediately tells me, ‘This sounds like video game music,’” says creator CJ Sutton. “That’s the highest compliment to me, because it’s definitely where my influence comes from. Not one specific game, just the cumulative influence of having played games my entire life.”

Night Lunch is a significant step up in both production and writing, utilizing real guitars and bass and longer songs. The last tune, Pair of Pennies, runs at eight minutes. Past albums featured pop-length material, keeping a short attention span and high dynamic. Night Lunch, however, fully explores grooves and has an almost storytelling-like characteristic. All bets are off here, bringing up 16-bit memories to help escape the hellish pandemic landscape and launch you into the stratosphere of good vibes and electronica.

“My brain works in a ‘big picture’ kind of way, so the larger arc is always there, and the songs are chapters in the story,” Sutton says. “I feel like a lot more can be said without words, so each listener has a different experience and imprints their own bias on the music. One of my friends is very visual and says the music puts images in his brain. I couldn’t ask for anything more.” 

Genre: Electronic, Bloghouse, Chiptune 

RIYL: Magic Sword, Daniel Deluxe, Battles, SEGA Genesis and SNES.