London’s The Tiger Lillies are celebrating 30 years of their provocative brand of avant-garde punk-cabaret with their symphonic new album, The Devil’s Fairground (out February 15). Themes of junkies, prostitutes and all forms of vice continue to make up the majority of their work. Frontman Martyn Jacques has a knack for finding beauty in the macabre and grotesque, like Poe, Lovecraft and Gorey before him. They’ve performed all over the world, making their way from humble beginnings of busking in the streets and playing barrooms to performing in massive concert halls and opera houses. They’ve shared bills with St. Vincent, John Cale, Patty Smith, David Byrne and more. They’ve built a legion of devoted fans including film director Terry Gilliam, the late Robin Williams and Simpsons creator Matt Groening.
The Devil’s Fairground takes the listener on a tour through the sordid underbelly of post-soviet Prague, where Jacques’ eye finds poetry in legless drunks, bored hookers and fatherless children. When The Tiger Lillies first began touring Europe in the early ‘90s, Prague was a place filled with exceptional hedonism. The Velvet Revolution had tossed out communism and separated Czechoslovakia into The Czech Republic and Slovakia without a drop of blood spilt, but the lost years between communism and capitalism had left a vacuum and The Tiger Lillies spent their time there cavorting with the artists and freaks. The band returned to Prague in September, 2018 to record The Devil’s Fairground live with a full orchestra, channeling the band’s experiences in the city between the fall of the Soviet Union and the influx of Western tourists. These seedy character studies make The Devil’s Fairground a fascinating snapshot of both post-Soviet Prague and the connections that Jacques makes with people.
The experience the band had while recorded the album is translated in the aptly title standout track “Summertime In Prague”, which we are excited to premiere on Glide today. With sweeping, dramatic orchestration, the song is a heartfelt and emotionally rich tale of fleeting love. Through lush strings and steadily building piano, the band conjures a sense of golden nostalgia that feels cinematic in such a way that you can picture this short-lived but impactful romance playing out in your mind. The song features a particularly rousing whistle solo, which only accentuates the band’s ability to straddle the line between pop, classic, and avant garde rock.
“‘Summertime in Prague’ is about a couple who spend a summer together. They go their separate ways but realise, as the years pass, that they were each other’s great loves,” says Martyn Jacques.
LISTEN:
The Devil’s Fairground is out Feb. 15 via Misery Guts Music. For more music and info visit tigerlillies.com.
Pre-order link: https://www.tigerlillies.com/shop/devils-fairground
Photo credit: Daniela Matejschek
