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Title: M1
Format: CD Album
Release Date: 7th October, 2011

Track Listing:
01. White Dove
02. Tempest
03. Run Away
04. For The People
05. So Many Nights
06. Anxious Sin
07. Letting It Go
08. Take A Trip
09. Mr Joshua Sinclair
10. Never Grow Old
11. Verbal Masturbation
12. Need To Be
13. Keep Off The Chemicals

Biography

The M1 was Tijuana Cartel’s only escape route. As a bright-eyed young band from the Gold Coast, they would often dream about what lay beyond the pristine beaches, enormous skyscrapers and sun-soaked boulevards of their famed hometown. Then one day they packed their bags and decided to find out.

The rest as they say is history. Two albums and many more years spent touring Australia’s lesser trodden paths have made Tijuana Cartel one of the most cultishly adored bands in the country. They are a band that has seen it all and done it all – they have been everywhere, man.

But it’s the highs and lows experienced on their beloved M1, in the various pubs, clubs, roadhouses, communes, campsites and cul-de-sacs scattered along this highway, that Tijuana Cartel have drawn inspiration for their latest offering. Forever indebted to this stretch of tar, bitumen and concrete, Tijuana Cartel have appropriately named their third album M1.

Just like the road it takes its name from, M1 is an escape for Tijuana Cartel. Recorded and produced by the band in a Nimbin farmhouse, never before have they experimented so heavily with their sonic palette; never have they occupied so many different headspaces; never have they pushed their own creative boundaries so forcefully.

“There’s a lot more vocals on this album and we’ve thrown in electric guitars and there are analogue synthesisers everywhere,” explains vocalist, guitarist and co-producer Paul George. “We’ve just gone hell for leather on the amount of instruments we’ve used. It’s almost self-indulgent I think.”

Coming from a dub and roots background, Tijuana Cartel’s musical shake-up has come not from a desire to shed the skins of their former selves, but rather to build and expand on what they already know. Just as the rest of the indie world plunders the sounds of Afro-beat and tropicalia, Tijuana Cartel are taking their worldly roots and moving them back towards more Western flavours.

“The contemporary bands we’ve been listening to haven’t really had a world music influence, it’s been more electronic or rock driven stuff like Midnight Juggernauts or The Presets,” Paul elaborates. “We listened to TV On The Radio and LCD Soundsystem quite a bit while we were making this album too. I think electronic music has become so wide and diverse that it’s open to taking influences from anywhere and people seem to be more accepting of that.”

Combining the old with the new, Tijuana Cartel have splattered their melting pot of influences all over M1, taking the listener on a round-the-world journey of sonic discovery. The flamenco-flickered For The People begins life in a sleepy Middle Eastern village before plunging to the depths of an East London warehouse rave; Mr Joshua Sinclair island-hops in the Caribbean with African tribesmen bashing away on conga drums before the dancefloor-friendly recent single Letting It Go drops anchor in a sweaty Sao Paulo street party. Perhaps M1 is less about escape and more about escapism.

What strikes you most about M1 and its apparent departure from a trademark Tijuana Cartel sound is that, just like life on the road, the further you get away from home, the closer you are to being there again. “It’s funny, we really didn’t think of this album as having a world music flavour but when we look back it does,” grins Paul. “It’s kind of stuck in everything we do now. I think world music used to be a dirty word for a while but it seems to be popping its head up in different guises these days. We’ve always had a world music flavour so it’s good for us that it’s swinging that way.”

M1 is not a world music record, but a record that spans the globe. It visits every continent, references every culture, yet lives in the here and now. It’s a musical odyssey that began life in the Gold Coast and will die only when Tijuana Cartel’s tour van can take them no further. It’s familiar and foreign all at once, a departure and return rolled into one. It’s a bold new step for Tijuana Cartel, and the first of many for a band that refuses to be confined to any one style, or any one place.

Links

Myspace: www.tijuanacartel.com

Myspace: www.myspace.com/tijuanacartelband

Contacts

Shiny Rep: Steven Stavrakis
Booking Agent: Daniel Gonzalez
Label: Niche Records