Tigerwing

Windsor, ON-based electro-pop producer and visual artist Tigerwing has just melded both of those art forms together for a brand new music video, and Exclaim! has got the exclusive premiere.

The "Need Me Bad" single was released earlier this year, giving listeners a gateway into the sonic realm of Tigerwing's haunting, atmospheric music. Now, it's been matched with an accompanying video that finds the artist experimenting with 3D animation.

Using video software called Maya, she was able to create an environment that was "familiar, yet uncanny and alien, distant from our known world." It channels the song's themes of "isolation, loneliness, and desperation," depicting the artist as the lone character in the video, calling out for help and receiving no response.

"I began working with 3D rendered animations because I was never happy or inspired by places around me enough to shoot a video in a space and trust it will communicate exactly what I want," Tigerwing tells Exclaim! "With this new media, my visuals can match my sound and my concepts more than ever before."

See the audio and visual collide in the brand new clip for "Need Me Bad" below - Exclaim!

Tigerwing is Florence And The Machine‘s cooler younger sister. With awesomely delicate vocals and harmonious melodies, this is one artist who has earned her funky aesthetic. It’s tough to stand out among the recent, post-Grimes plethora of alternative/synth-heavy vocalists, but Tigerwing certainly does so. Favorite tracks include Ponytails and Meant To Kill. - CMJ

What is it about Tigerwing’s Black Light / White Lies that gets the club quaking? It’s probably the trembling bass of “Abraca-Bye” that immediately grips leg muscles by their nerves only to make em move. Or the wooziness of “Cold Hands” to cut the dance floor a break, so grab a partner close and take a minute (or three) to slow dance. And the beckoning rythm in “Tell Me” swirls heads into a two-step number they pick up quick, free-styling like the weaving of Tigerwing’s lyrics. Yet, the most prominently obvious siren of Black Light / White Lies is Tigerwing’s vocal presence. Like, feeling of artist being present is abound. As if Tigerwing were singing, standing before you.

Then the remix and edits happen, which are just explosive enough to keep listeners repeating Tigerwing’s Black Light / White Lies on the Drama Hands Bandcamp until it’s time to fork up some dough. So just grip the digital and have a listen below: - Tiny Mix Tapes

These beats are too evil. That’s an assessment made by Tigerwing herself straight out of the gates in opening track “Intro.” This reviewer would argue that beats and evil go well hand in hand, but this ain’t my show. No, Make the Rabbits Run is a decidedly self-possessed work wherein project mastermind Sarah Kelly’s roar-like vocals warp between naked belting and disarming textural element. From there, a simple palette of blunt beats and eerie yet melodic clinking rounds out a power trio of sharp, theatrical strength. Minimalism is the wrong word for it—though “Intro,” “Tied” and others are near acapella, they still create a disruptive level of overbearing presence. Kelly’s voice could rest on its own striking fullness, but seldom does. Somewhere between chopped ‘n’ screwed hip-hop production and grim club cues lie the rhythmic knack for inducing both dancing and hypnosis on tracks like “Sands of Ah Merica” and “Here Lies 2 Lovers.” It’s a strange sensation to feel both uncomfortable and intimately welcomed into her intricate world of assertion and alienisms. By the time listeners make it to closing song “Coax,” they are likely to feel a physical, reverse-gravitational pull not unlike a tractor beam. One can’t help but be pulled into the world of Make the Rabbits Run as they are given little choice. Even at its darkest and most challenging, the album is one that has too strong a hold to shy from. - Beatroute

The core passage of Alberta’s Tigerwing (a.k.a. Sarah Kelly), whether in collaborative or solo takes, looms around like winter clouds without fail. Even now, as Tigerwing grows further from its conception two years back, it’s dark pop still sleeps in a sturdily built haunt.Make The Rabbits Run, Sarah’s latest album, was self-released in June after two and a video for “coax.” Sizably larger in unruffled vox and production depth, the album draws range to Austra or a darker Autre Nu Veut-like traits, and subtle flashes of vocal mutations. Make The Rabbits Run’s best example is “Frail Thing” – whose video is premiered below.

The video was directed by Sarah and features Alan the Model. Make The Rabbits Run and several other releases are available for download on the Tigerwing Bandcamp. - Tiny Mix Tapes

Tigerwing. She’s either a quirky R&B singer with some weird-ass backing music, or she’s an electronic post-rock experimentalist on a soul kick. Doesn’t matter. Sarah Kelly cooks up some killer rhythms and croons like a gospel singer, all in aid of her off-kilter dark synth pop. At times you wanna dance. At other times you worry that she should be on medication. It’s all good.

Upshot: Finally, a full-length album of Tigerwing’s personal vision. An art-rock/dark-waver’s delight. - Ride the Tempo

CALGARY — Sarah Kelly has been living in Calgary for about a year now. In that time, she’s brought her Tigerwing project to stages for highly dramatic performances, which centred on her enormous voice and boldly dark productions.

After growing up in both Newfoundland and Northern Alberta, the visual artist and musician made the move to Calgary to wrap up an arts degree at ACAD. Attending the school was a process that gave her freedom to explore the Tigerwing identity across a variety of media.

“I do all the visual artwork. All the drawings and, as well, any photos or videos,” she explains.

A great recent example of Kelly’s work in the visual realm is the uneasy and alien video for “Coax.” The video sees a model in a viking hat, surrounded by exotic taxidermy while lights flicker over the scene.

You can expect to hear “Coax” on her forthcoming debut LP, the release date and title for which are to be announced.

“I definitely have way, way too much material. It’s really nice to come back to, even after a year, and just find out how relevant [the tracks] still are… I think I’m going to do a full length-release in June,” she says.

The record will be self-released. Kelly seems largely uninterested in ceding any control over the project, and why should she? Through crafting an “aesthetic” to define the project both musically and visually, it seems she’s caused some confusion among potential audiences.

“I’m really working on straddling two different worlds which are pop music and visual arts. It’s weird because I really don’t see them as separate worlds at all, but I’m constantly fighting to be in both,” she says.

Whether someone “gets it” or not, it’s a component she intends to push even further.

“That’s kind of the big thing for me, now that all the music is practically made and ready to go. I think the part I find important and even more fun is working on this overall concept and contextualizing everything.”

To summarize the relationship she says, “I find that I might go a month without making music but it’s like things are gestating while I’m making visual art and vice-versa. They’re always complementing each other.”

We also discussed how female artists are often pinned down into identities by the press based on their appearance. In the case of Tigerwing, though, the look is an important component to the overall identity of the project.

“The thing that I never can get down with in a review about a female musician is the suggestion that there are these inherent traits. Like, ‘she was behaving this way’ or ‘she was shy’… I think the words I try to use are uncompromising and present, disturbing in a way that’s not being passive and not really trying to be entertaining necessarily,” she says.

While the conceptual methodology of the project was an easy subject for the artist, putting the influence of sound into words was something a little more convoluted.

“It’s hard to speak to speak about the sonics… It just keeps going back to musicals. I’m constantly referencing The Phantom of the Opera or Jesus Christ Super Star. It’s weird. I don’t think I’ve even seen that many musicals but there is something about the theatricality that really plays into the sonics. I definitely find it can be really exciting to write a structured pop song with all these textures. When I say cinematic, hopefully you think of strings and really heavy, bass-y drums.”

Looking ahead at her debut LP and a fall move to Ontario for grad school, Kelly has a clear and ambitious vision of Tigerwing’s future.

“It’s like a new season of Tigerwing,” she says. “This is my first year, really, with this project and now I just think I see all the possible trajectories. I’m really excited to treat it as an extensive project that goes in a lot of different directions and I think one thing that can tie it to a certain timeline or just organize some sort of chronological order to this project is just something as simple as an aesthetic or just one type of performance.” - Beatroute

Equipped with a microphone, a lap top, and a virtual miscellany of high-tech glowing gadgets and gizmos, Sarah Kelly, better known as Tigerwing, took the stage looking like a nouveau rap star in an oversized baseball jersey, oversized skull necklace, and metallic lips. At times, her performance was dark and haunting as the lower stage filled with her trademark sound of bleeps and bloops and reverb-laden and layered backup vocals, while other times it was lighter and harkening back to the era of mid-to-late nineties dance. While seeming somewhat shy at first, her stage presence was most definitely felt by the second half of the show. - Beatroute, Max Maxwell

Rumpshakers can often dominate at RPM, but the collab, ‘xela, from two of Calgary’s outré artists that clocks in at No. 6 at CFUV’s RPM chart is anything but. ‘xela‘s cool beats and Zola Jesus-style warble slink and undulate like an alleycat prowling a gothic ruin. - CMJ

Whoa! Bugged out Tigerwing gone for a snack. And this time, it’s minus good-pal Barnaby Bennett. But that’s all good. I was blaring this track throughout my apartment last night while my fiancee was asleep, and she came out and was like, “What is that? Can you turn it down? It’s too good for me to sleep.” Then I told her she should watch the video. This morning, I woke up half dead, heart in hand, and kissed her bloody mouth. I didn’t axe questions, just found a stapler and did some self-surgery.

“Luxury us” is a slightly retro-driven video, but so future in style and withdrawn from audience, that the captivation is within the song itself. Predominantly in the video, Tigerwing both alienates and resonates listeners as musician and psychopath. Do we all want to be musicians and rock stars? Are we all on the brink of celebr-insanity? Or does our innermost secrets rely on something much darker and deeply rooted anti-social tendencies, like eating people? Answer: swag. Just act like you own the place. Fuck, maybe she in a museum and calling her cannibalism art! Tigerwing’s EP I want to rip your heart out will be available soon, but for now you’ll have to swine on the single “Luxury us.”

• Tigerwing: https://soundcloud.com/tigerwing - Tiny Mix Tapes

Peering out the wilderness of Canada, ‘xela pops off at lounge-pace relaxation from the minds of Tigerwing x Barnaby Bennett. Which is opposite of what the teaser trailer made listeners think, however, it looks like the two took everything from ‘xela and smashed it into one entire one-minute bit:
https://vimeo.com/84279650

In ‘xela, Tigerwing x Barnaby Bennett paint sound with colors used from the unknown, drawing upon vocal technique and collaged melodies to transgress both MC hoarding and mixer mania. There’s a LOT going down in ‘xela, but contrary to how that reads, Tigerwing x Barnaby Bennett stabilize their functions to please listener’s to ears. Most importantly, their plethora of sounds together do not sound like a struggle. Seamless doesn’t even correctly pinpoint their initiative here in collaboration. Though, the intent of this being a collaborative project is all the more valuable to their work together, considering the sheer amount of solo musicians who never reach out to jam with others; ‘xela is the shining example of why working together in music changes/progresses art.

So grip on this major rip ‘xela by Tigerwing x Barnaby Bennett below, and become relaxed as part of the journey unfolding:
https://soundcloud.com/barnaby-bennett/sets/tigerwing-x-barnaby-bennett-1 - Tiny Mix Tapes (C Monster)

Tigerwing has released a video for “The Hunt,” one of our favourite tracks of last month. The abrupt shifts in tempo and harmony nicely alter the affective dimension of the visuals, as a particular motif may appear ominous at one moment but unexpectedly hopeful at the next. - Silent Shout

Tigerwing is Sarah Kelly. It’s like her alter-ego, or better yet, a part of her she just can’t shake, and neither should she! Kelly writes and produces her own music and is the eye behind all Tigerwing’s artful aesthetics. Let’s just say Kelly is arty-farty, a term I use to describe myself, from time to time, it’s a good thing.


Her fluttery vocals fall upon layers of syn-pop fusion and chilled out beats. The sound is delicate in parts, yet uncertainty and darkness lurk around corners ready to strike. It’s that uncertainty I like in her work. It feels like nothing is forced and Tigerwing just happens organically.




I asked Sarah to tell us a little about herself. I didn’t change a thing from what she wrote in her email. She writes eloquently, so I prefer you hear her story in her own voice. And so…


I was born on the East Coast (Newfoundland, Canada), I grew up by the ocean, surrounded by vibrant music and art. My family moved around, and because I am an only child, I spent a lot of time alone, writing stories and poetry. I became very adaptable to any situation by observing and analyzing the people around me, which also fostered a profound empathy that continues to haunt and exhaust me.


I was put in a music program before I had begun school, and in later years took to writing my own piano compositions. Theory turned my stomach, and everyone was trying to shove the conventional down my throat. I thought that would change when I got to art school, but it felt even more restrictive. I live and work on instinct, and I want honest art, I want to work in a medium with immediacy and free movement. Playing one guitar or one piano was frustrating, so I started working electronically. It is like painting with sound, and there is no one standing over my shoulder telling me how it should sound because I am creating something out of nothing. Once I realized my instruments didn’t exist, and it was only my ideas that mattered, I could focus on communicating exactly what I felt/ exactly what I see.



There is a danger in pretending everything is alright, and what I find most beautiful about human beings is our capacity to feel such intense emotion. Why is that feared and buried so deep inside? It’s not healthy, I just want people to understand the power, begin to heal and understand each other.





Kelly has assured me Tigerwing live performances are coming soon, with her next release later in the fall. We will keep you posted. - I am Not a Musician

Edmonton’s Tigerwing, on whom details are despairingly scarce at the moment, is the most unsettling new artist you’ll hear this year. Her songs feel disjointed, jumbled and in emotional havoc, with shrieking synths overlapping bizarrely with her sublime, tortured vocals, yet somehow, it all comes together. Of the three tracks available so far, The Hunt is the pick of the bunch; dark, otherworldly and utterly brilliant. There’s touches of Purity Ring, Björk and, most obviously, Grimes, but even Boucher’s unique, exuberant style comes nowhere near to Tigerwing in terms of levels of sheer mindfuck.

On other tracks, there’s the shrill cry of Ophelia, fusing eccentric pop inspirations, with a twisted, almost psychotic element, whereas Weight of Want dances wildly and completely out of control. In truth, I’m struggling to explain exactly how I feel about Tigerwing, so I’ll stick to this – she’s one of my favourite new artists of the year. - Josh Dalton, Crack in the Road

Building on the immense promise demonstrated in lead single “coax”, Calgary/Windsor artist gothy electronic pop artist Tigerwing had our expectations for her full-length debut running high after a few very impressive EPs in the past couple of years. And boy did Make the Rabbits Run deliver. Alternate-universe pop in a very strange universe indeed. Her no-rules approach to electropop results in a chaotic and idiosyncratic style that’s wholly original, and yet, somehow never ceases to be catchy. - Silent Shout

BeatRoute is proud to premiere the latest work by Tigerwing, the artistic name of Sarah Kelly. Tigerwing was brewed in part during Kelly’s stint at ACAD here in Calgary, while this latest video is her thesis work for her MFA in Film and Media at the University of Windsor. Watch it now, and check out a statement from Kelly below... - Beatroute