Neither enormous or extinct. He’s not even a dinosaur. Explain!
Teed (AKA Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs) is a doer. Exhibit A; Plonked into an all-boy school during his formative years, TEED (then known as Orlando Higginbottom) explains: “I wasn’t very popular because I liked drama and jungle music, so I was seen as too leftfield for everyone.” His solution? “I left that school and started another where everyone was into drama and jungle!” Simple. Exhibit B; Mired in the faceless world of contemporary club culture, TEED opted not to assume the “black T-shirt and black shoes” uniform of his peers and instead took the sartorial decision to dress as a dinosaur. That’s right; a dinosaur. And how does he feel when confronted with those still in the muted, self-conscious garb he chose to abandon? “Thank fuck I dress up as a dinosaur!” Case closed.
What with his silly name, extravagant outfits and didactic personality, it would be easy to assume that TEED would be a bit of a dick. An EC1 version of LMFAO. Or, even worse, Jamiroquai. But you’d be wrong. Very wrong. The son of an Oxford university music professor, Orlando has successfully taken the tropes of dance music and refracted it through a lens which encompasses the mainstream (Radio 1 support, Lady Gaga remixes and Nokia ad soundtracks) yet doesn’t compromise its core principles. Rather than bolt a dubstep wobble on to any old beat and pass it off as chart friendly dance bollocks, TEED’s debut album ‘Trouble’ is a rich and textured listen that exposes his clear love of the genre and respect for the listener. Digested read; it’s knob on.
“Well, I originally wanted the album to be called ‘Original Hardcore Tribal Mix’,” Orlando reveals, talking to Clash in Chicago whilst on a headline American tour. “It’s an incredible title, don’t you think? But because it’s a major label and a worldwide release, it would have caused issues as people would think it was a mix and not an album. So whilst I’m pretty gutted, ‘Trouble’ was always second on the list. ‘Original Hardcore Tribal Mix’ was a reference to the attitude of late-Eighties and early-Nineties dance music which I really loved, whilst ‘Trouble’ was the more emotional, lyric-focused side of the album,” adding with a laugh: “basically saying that I’m always having a slightly bad time somehow…”
Whereas many artists have attempted to commit the contrasting emotions of introspective songwriting and aggravated BPM to record, it all too often comes across as a dichotomy which satisfies neither end of the spectrum. With ‘Trouble’, TEED has succeeded in balancing these twin goals; drawing obvious comparisons with the likes of Junior Boys and Hot Chip, albeit with a sound that is more readily transferable to dance music’s natural habitat of the club. But how do you convert this into something which provides a satisfying listen in its own right? With a good dose of reflection, that’s how. “I kept telling myself; you only get to release one shit album,” he laughs, “but I’m also aware that people will probably pick out and download, say, three of the songs they like - so hopefully every track on the record can be standalone. But then I also wanted to make something you could listen to as a whole,” he continues, “and I think, without becoming my own critic, I wrote something which was slightly too long for a single listen. But that was because I wanted to give something which had elements to discover a little later, so you wouldn’t get it all on the first week of having it. I’d been thinking about how shit most dance music albums are and how they just don’t really last.”
Citing Roni Size and Reprazent’s 1997 Mercury winner ‘New Forms’ as an example of longevity within the genre, TEED is quick to reflect on the emotional currency which contributes to this perception. “An amazing album which stays with you talks about where you were at the time,” he explains. “We’re trying to make music which people fall in love with and it’s definitely the case that when you’re a teenager you fall deeply in love with a record and I haven’t really done that for a long time. I used to have a Discman by the side of my bed and I’d listen to the same record every single night for like three weeks. And it would be the whole album. And I’d never do that anymore,” he laughs. “I might listen to a single track obsessively, but a whole album? Never.”
Ranging from the Parliament-sampling ‘Tapes And Money’ through to ‘Fair’’s bruised soundscapes, ‘American Dream Part 2’’s squelchy club posturing and the title track’s vulcanized harmonies, ‘Trouble’ is an album that allows the listener to discover its charms over time and reflect their mood rather than dictate it. And whilst the record will inexorably be categorised as dance, the timeless bittersweet ambience which permeates throughout will ensure it lives beyond the initial burst of interest and avoids the transient nature of trend-chasing chart fodder. And this theme of understanding your place within the broader hagiography is something which TEED keeps being drawn back to. “I love record shops. I just find them amazing places. The thing is for me, they’re kind of sad too. Especially if they’re second-hand record shops. There are loads of broken dreams going on. Seeing all the effort, all the attention, all the passion and love going into the music and it ends up in the one-dollar bin. You look at it and it’s made in 1978 and there’s so much history and shit. They’re just really atmospheric places.”
TEED plays Benicassim festival on 15th July. ‘Trouble’ is out on 11th June.
The full version of this interview appears in the July 2012 issue of Clash Magazine. Find out more about the issue HERE and subscribe to Clash magazine HERE.
Words by Adam Park
Photo by Hayley Louisa Brown
Styling by Matthew Josephs
Read Clash's review of Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs' latest album, 'Trouble'.
What with his silly name, extravagant outfits and didactic personality, it would be easy to assume that TEED would be a bit of a dick. An EC1 version of LMFAO. Or, even worse, Jamiroquai. But you’d be wrong. Very wrong. The son of an Oxford university music professor, Orlando has successfully taken the tropes of dance music and refracted it through a lens which encompasses the mainstream (Radio 1 support, Lady Gaga remixes and Nokia ad soundtracks) yet doesn’t compromise its core principles. Rather than bolt a dubstep wobble on to any old beat and pass it off as chart friendly dance bollocks, TEED’s debut album ‘Trouble’ is a rich and textured listen that exposes his clear love of the genre and respect for the listener. Digested read; it’s knob on.
“Well, I originally wanted the album to be called ‘Original Hardcore Tribal Mix’,” Orlando reveals, talking to Clash in Chicago whilst on a headline American tour. “It’s an incredible title, don’t you think? But because it’s a major label and a worldwide release, it would have caused issues as people would think it was a mix and not an album. So whilst I’m pretty gutted, ‘Trouble’ was always second on the list. ‘Original Hardcore Tribal Mix’ was a reference to the attitude of late-Eighties and early-Nineties dance music which I really loved, whilst ‘Trouble’ was the more emotional, lyric-focused side of the album,” adding with a laugh: “basically saying that I’m always having a slightly bad time somehow…”
Whereas many artists have attempted to commit the contrasting emotions of introspective songwriting and aggravated BPM to record, it all too often comes across as a dichotomy which satisfies neither end of the spectrum. With ‘Trouble’, TEED has succeeded in balancing these twin goals; drawing obvious comparisons with the likes of Junior Boys and Hot Chip, albeit with a sound that is more readily transferable to dance music’s natural habitat of the club. But how do you convert this into something which provides a satisfying listen in its own right? With a good dose of reflection, that’s how. “I kept telling myself; you only get to release one shit album,” he laughs, “but I’m also aware that people will probably pick out and download, say, three of the songs they like - so hopefully every track on the record can be standalone. But then I also wanted to make something you could listen to as a whole,” he continues, “and I think, without becoming my own critic, I wrote something which was slightly too long for a single listen. But that was because I wanted to give something which had elements to discover a little later, so you wouldn’t get it all on the first week of having it. I’d been thinking about how shit most dance music albums are and how they just don’t really last.”
Citing Roni Size and Reprazent’s 1997 Mercury winner ‘New Forms’ as an example of longevity within the genre, TEED is quick to reflect on the emotional currency which contributes to this perception. “An amazing album which stays with you talks about where you were at the time,” he explains. “We’re trying to make music which people fall in love with and it’s definitely the case that when you’re a teenager you fall deeply in love with a record and I haven’t really done that for a long time. I used to have a Discman by the side of my bed and I’d listen to the same record every single night for like three weeks. And it would be the whole album. And I’d never do that anymore,” he laughs. “I might listen to a single track obsessively, but a whole album? Never.”
Ranging from the Parliament-sampling ‘Tapes And Money’ through to ‘Fair’’s bruised soundscapes, ‘American Dream Part 2’’s squelchy club posturing and the title track’s vulcanized harmonies, ‘Trouble’ is an album that allows the listener to discover its charms over time and reflect their mood rather than dictate it. And whilst the record will inexorably be categorised as dance, the timeless bittersweet ambience which permeates throughout will ensure it lives beyond the initial burst of interest and avoids the transient nature of trend-chasing chart fodder. And this theme of understanding your place within the broader hagiography is something which TEED keeps being drawn back to. “I love record shops. I just find them amazing places. The thing is for me, they’re kind of sad too. Especially if they’re second-hand record shops. There are loads of broken dreams going on. Seeing all the effort, all the attention, all the passion and love going into the music and it ends up in the one-dollar bin. You look at it and it’s made in 1978 and there’s so much history and shit. They’re just really atmospheric places.”
TEED plays Benicassim festival on 15th July. ‘Trouble’ is out on 11th June.
The full version of this interview appears in the July 2012 issue of Clash Magazine. Find out more about the issue HERE and subscribe to Clash magazine HERE.
Words by Adam Park
Photo by Hayley Louisa Brown
Styling by Matthew Josephs
Read Clash's review of Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs' latest album, 'Trouble'.
Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs
