Photo by Qarim Brown
Audio By Carbonatix
Tiga’s new single, “Ecstasy Surrounds Me,” with its unapologetic synth-pop glory, is not the artist’s soapbox stand or effort to resurrect a genre that began back in the Carter administration. It’s a song that tries to explain the genesis of the Canadian’s three-decade-long career.
“It’s a synth-pop record,” he says matter-of-factly to the New Times from his Montreal home. “It’s just my first love, it’s the music I grew up with. I think for anyone who makes music, everyone has their real love and the things they dream of making.”
The single is tied to his upcoming fourth album, Hotlife, set for release in April 2026. It begins with those time-honoured synths that feel like driving the white convertible down Collins Ave. A pounding kick enters, and synths layer over each other while a confident vocalist takes the mic. “Honestly, have you ever met someone like me?/she said, Oh baby, there’s been so many/You’re just no good to me.” It’s a track that carries some nostalgia, to be sure, but also suitable for the cell-phone-flooded club havens of today.
It’s not hyperbole to say that every mainstream or underground DJ has played a Tiga track at some point. For one, his songs usually come wrapped in entrancing vocals and forceful basslines (see, “Let’s Go Dancing”). Second, they are just downright fun to play (see, “Bugatti” and 2009’s “You Gonna Want Me”). It’s exactly why locals and tourists alike should catch his two sets at Factory Town during Art Basel, the first on Friday, December 5, for Beltran’s Beltools party and the second at Solomun’s Diynamic showcase.
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“I never thought I would have these, almost like ‘dance standards,’ it’s cool. I guess I’m cooler with it now, but I personally don’t like to reminisce,” he explains. “I guess it’s, I don’t know, it’s like, if your music touched people and people love it, and if it was a soundtrack for great times in their lives, I know that feeling, and it’s a really important feeling. I’m into it”.
Tiga James Sontag grew up in Montreal and spent some of his childhood in Goa, India, where his father would DJ at parties in the late ‘70s. Upon returning to Canada, he was enamoured by groups like Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, and the KLF. He began DJ’ing as a teenager, throwing parties with friends, and fell into the local rave scene, where he crate-digged and eventually owned the hometown and influential club, Sona. Around that time, he founded his successful label, Turbo. Tiga eventually made his first visit to Miami for the Winter Music Conference in the late ’90s. “I remember feeling like a total unknown with a window to the industry,” he recalls.
He admits that tracks like “Let’s Go Dancing” do not always align perfectly with his taste, but a track like “Ecstasy Surrounds Me,” which he and his frequent collaborator Matthew Dear wrote, is the foundation of what made Tiga want to DJ. “I needed to hear it,” he explains. “There’s some romance to it and some attitude and confidence. It’s a confident record. It’s not so easy to make stuff, to capture it without it feeling pastiche, is not so easy for me. I think it has a genuine feeling for me.”
On December 5, he will release another single from Hotlife, “Silk Scarf,” in collaboration with Fcukers. “I don’t even know how records like that happen,” he chuckles. “It started as a good groove, and I added some strange vocals to it; then a strange story formed.” Tiga was working on other projects with the New York duo (Shanny Wise and Jackson Walker Lewis) and figured the time was right for the two to lend some vocals.
The bass bounces off the walls with unsettling screeches and tinges of acid. “You wear a silk scarf when you walk down the street,” repeats Lewis and Wise, in an almost mocking tone. “A record like that, you’re actually hearing people having fun in the studio.” There is no symbolism in “Silk Scarf’s” lyrics or instructions to play the track backwards under a full moon to uncover the meaning of life.
It truly is three friends creating something off the cuff, and with the added advantage of being gifted artists. Tiga modulates the synths so much that at its lows, it sounds like an army of mechanical bees buzzing in your ears. The radio edit is only three minutes, but you come out sweating.
It could be the ageless vocals in Tiga’s tracks, the fact that he has never devoted himself to one particular scene, or his youthful appearance — sharp, retro-inspired hair, black eyeliner, but his catalogue never wanes. Indeed, it could not have been longer than a year ago when I heard Carl Cox dropped “Let’s Go Dancing,” and for good measure — how would a track with its thumping basslines, heady percussion, and commanding vocals roaring at you to “Let’s go dancing, I wanna go dancing with you. All night, dancing “ not hold its weight? He may have produced only four albums in the last 30 years, but each one remains the artist at his best.
“An album is like the best way to cross it all off your list and start fresh. So for this one, it was really important, and it had been so long, especially with COVID. It was very, very important to clear the slate, and sometimes you’re surprised that you can still make music, that there is still the desire. It feels exciting,” he wraps.
Tiga. With Beltran, Danny Daze, DJ Tennis, and more. 9 p.m. Friday, December 5, at Factory Town, 4800 NW 37th Ave, Miami; factorytown.com.Tickets cost $120 to $100.01 to $155.22 via dice.fm.
Tiga. With Solomun, Steve Angello, Avalon Emerson, and more. Danny Daze, DJ Tennis, and more. 9 p.m. Sunday, December 7, at Factory Town, 4800 NW 37th Ave, Miami; factorytown.com.Tickets cost $60.02 to $120 via dice.fm.
