EP Focus: Tobacco Rat

Jake Steele, in the guise of Tobacco Rat, launches a new EP, Subsistence, at The Bird on Friday, March 18, with help from Diger Rokwell and Atripat. Bob Gordon checks in to see what's inside the mask.

What is the essence of Tobacco Rat? The essence of Tobacco Rat is dark and heavy electronic beats with an industrial aesthetic of urban decay and experimentation. An amalgamation of strong visual elements with sonically pleasing audio attacks.

You were inspired by an artwork you saw in Paris... what set you off? Being in Europe was really inspiring on the whole and it just felt like it was the right time to restructure my output into a more complete project. I like how a few words can become an idea which can then morph into a full project and beyond, and I’m excited about where it is heading.

How would you characterise the differences between Yarhkob and Tobacco Rat? Tobacco Rat is definitely more focussed in the production and aesthetic. I’m just trying to keep it locked firm in that bass world, and thinking about things from a live club perspective, how tracks would work out live and how they keep the set moving.

Yarhkob can be anything and everything from ambient hip hop to extreme drum and bass to manipulated washing machine and compacter noise for 20 minutes.

There are so many styles and flavours in the music, you could almost be regarded as genre-less... or genre-ful. How liberating is that? It is pretty satisfying to be able to go with the flow and see where a track ends up without having to worry about whether it works with the ‘genre’. I think it's good to change it up a bit anyway to keep things progressing, and not get too locked into any one style. And also for myself and my future fans, for every new track, you don’t know where it is going to go, so with that unknown element it can really increase the excitement on a whole.

Is it also liberating wearing the costume? It has its moments. You can pull funny faces while performing and no one notices.

Do you feel one with the music and separate from the audience when you perform? I think yes and no. There are times when you feel separated from the audience because you are in a whole other world, trapped in there with an alien face-hugger attached to your face. Then other times… no, that's it.

With the EP now out, what are the plans from here? These songs are all quite old for me now, so I have a bunch of new material almost ready to finalise which is exciting as they are in a slightly different direction to the songs on this EP. I’ve organised a few shows over east so I want to build and expand the rat network around Australia and beyond. Definitely a few filmclips are on the cards and I am starting to look into 3D modelling and printing to make some crazy Tobacco Rat merch! 

Originally published in X-Press Magazine