Tranquilo Tigre
To ensure the highest possible quality of our releases, we do lots of testing before they hit the shelves. One of our test series even includes animals, because those helpless creatures are often involuntarily exposed to the music their owners listen to. Studies prove that pets suffer from specific sounds, infact some frequencies are so painful for certain animals that they become severely insane.
It goes without saying that we won’t sell any products that will harm your beloved pet. But we at 2nd rec have higher goals. As you may know, music can have a relaxing and even healing effect not only on humans, but also on animals. And that is - besides hundreds of other things - what we are trying to achieve with every release: making animals happy.
Below you see some photos from tests we conducted for the Zucchini Drive 12″ “Easy Tiger” (in stores next week).
At first our laboratory animal Kapitan was very sceptical when he approached the record. The little tomcat was raised by an avid indie rock fan who listened to Guided by Voices, Lemonheads and Flaming Lips records all day long and it wasn’t until recently that the cat learned about hiphop. But since the record starts with the familiar voice and guitar strumming of Markus Acher (from The Notwist), Kapitan seemingly felt comfortable very quickly.
Kapitan showed a lot of interest in the record, examining it from all angles. Neurochemical tests proved our presumption: it’s the originality of the music and the appealing cover artwork (featuring two creatures of his own species) that intrigued the cat.
When we listed to the recordings for the first time, we’ve had some doubts about the title track’s influence on cats. The massive, bouncy beat (produced by Lord Grunge of Grand Buffet) and the intricate raps of three different MCs could be too much to cope with for a sensetive kitty, we thought. But - much to our surprise and relief - Kapitan behaved very calmly when we played this track.
Further experiments showed that it was mainly the lyrics of the chorus that were responsible for the cat’s zen-like equilibrium.