Tiga may not be as prolific as we (Well, I.) would wish him to be but you have to hand it to the dude for sticking to a very strict aesthetic of high luxury circa futuristic 1986. He hasn’t released anything bigger than a single since his 2009 album Ciao! and, while Non-Stop is one of the best Acid House mixes in recent history, he still leaves you wanting more. Yet, when Tiga delivers, he delivers.
An example of this: his latest single “Bugatti” came out in July and offered a very Germanic, very eighties, and very contemporary fusion of Krautrock and Tech House. Just when the song was gathering a *thin* layer of dust, Tiga released one of his best videos yet that is like watching a mixtape of sexy late eighties commercials from an alternate dimension, where men receive ketchup bukkake treatments and women play backgommon on men’s crotches. Needless to say, some of this video is NSFW.
Directed by Helmi, it consists of quick cuts and dramatic shots edited to the metallic cadence Tiga bases the song on. It’s broken by shots of him in varying outfits shouting “BUGATTI!!” at the camera. Like the song, every “scene” picks up a different piece of debris that results in warping the reality of this eighties world: remote controls spit, sexy legs have lost their bodies, people turn to dominoes, etc. Helmi plays with a visual vocabulary over and over and over again, presenting them in different shapes and forms like parallel universes orbiting next to each other without noticing. The effect is hysterical and absolutely ridiculous—and absolutely Tiga. As the song’s lyrics suggests, the Bugatti at one point was the car to have if you are a macho, aggressive, power suit wearing, ski lodge loving dude who works in finance: the video is a parody of that.
While some has branded the video as “Wes Anderson Movie On Techno And Acid,” I say it’s more of a commercialist fantasy where Tiga gets to grab the tits of models from Esprit commercials while drinking Cold Duck. It’s a fitting follow up to the swank still “Plush” and cable access kookiness of “Shoes.” This is undoubtedly the video of the year. Or 1986.