Supercaan

Supercaan’s introspective second album, A Tiger Walks the Street, sees the band come face to face with their biggest anxieties. The record’s title stems from a line in their existential, glitchy anthemic set closer Nagoro, which shares its name with an eerie rural Japanese village where faded handmade scarecrow dolls have replaced a population drawn to the brighter lights of the cities. “I saw that village as a metaphor for the cost of progress,” says lyricist Tom Whitfield.

The album represents a children’s book with each track manifesting as a fable. “We’re not young men anymore, we have families, and this album is written for them.” says Whitfield. “there’s a slightly naïve wisdom in those tracks that conjures up the idea of a fable.” Frontman Greg Milner – a photographer by day – carries the metaphor through into the album’s artwork featuring painted wooden toy blocks that create a paradox by evoking both childhood innocence and the rigid structure of society. 

BIO

Supercaan’s introspective second album, A Tiger Walks the Streets, which will be released digitally and on Vinyl, sees the band come face to face with their biggest anxieties. The record’s title stems from a line in their existential, skittering anthemic set closer Nagoro, which shares its name with an eerie rural Japanese village where faded handmade scarecrow dolls have replaced a population drawn to the brighter lights of the cities. “I saw that village as a metaphor for the cost of progress,” says lyricist Tom Whitfield. “The tiger represents the creeping threat of modernisation and the sense that our place in the world is fragile.”

The album represents a children’s book with each track manifesting as a fable. “We’re not young men anymore, we have families, and this album is written for them.” says Whitfield. “there’s a slightly naïve wisdom in those tracks that conjures up the idea of a fable.” Frontman Greg Milner – a photographer by day – carries the metaphor through into the album’s artwork featuring painted wooden toy blocks that create a paradox by evoking both childhood innocence and the rigid structure of society.

The propulsive, urgent first single Zoetrope is a sharp observation on the way double standards undermine society’s rules. Then there’s the multi-layered, synth-laden Ricochet which tackles the complex hypocrisy of vanity. “The protagonist is criticising other people for being vain, but finds they’re only happy in that judgement. They’re a vampire living on other people’s sins,” says Whitfield. 

Everything Collapses, meanwhile, is a reflective slow-burner about the death  of former bandmate of Whitfield and Milner. The track starts in the depths of grief before finding peace and an anthemic ending which picture  their friend’s son playing the drums like his dad.  “That’s the song I’m most proud of that we’ve ever written together,”  says Milner.

Supercaan were formed in 2013, with the band’s name inspired by British author J.G. Ballard’s dark thriller Super-Cannes. The influence of bands like Canadian indie collective Broken Social Scene and late 1990s Nottingham rockers Six By Seven is writ large in Supercaan’s anthemic indie rock. Whitfield’s nostalgic synths create soaring electronic landscapes, further propelled by Milner’s ruminative vocals. The result is a brooding sound big enough to act as a backdrop for the weighty questions each song tackles. 

“We ask ourselves how big can we go in that space of a four to five-minute indie-pop song,” says Whitfield. “We’ve always liked artists that have made albums where you don't want to skip a track because it's all part of a story. A Tiger Walks the Streets is a bit mix tape indie, each track has a different inspiration, a different sensibility, but all stitched together to tell one story.”

Their 2019 self-titled debut album explored a pool of abstract ideas – from society’s imperfections and false memories, to warped perspectives and insomnia – experimenting with samplers and synthesisers to create sprawling, multi-layered sonic vistas. The rousing stadium-sized lead single, The Bull, earned recognition from BBC Radio 6 Music, described by broadcaster Tom Robinson as “motoring, atmospheric psychedelia”. While the sensitive, swirling The Great North Eastern made Spotify’s Fresh Finds playlist. 

Returning three years later with their second album, the band started working on A Tiger Walks the Streets during the first lockdown in March 2020 with producer Simon Weaver (Katherine Priddy, Matters). “By November that year, the group were able to get into the studio in Birmingham to record their individual parts,” says Milner “Recording on our own gave us more time to really focus on the sound we were bringing to the album, from start to finish. We all knew the story the album was trying to tell.” 

“We really wanted to make this album for ourselves. It’s nearly four minutes before you hear a vocal, we didn’t write it for Spotify Algorithms or radio playlists.” says Whitfield.

Their grand ambitions for the second album also meant recruiting two new members, guitarist Ralph Frost and Justin Januszewski on bass. “It's given the music more of a raw physicality,” says Whitfield. “It's heavier, quicker. It's a bit darker, a bit broodier.” 

Whitfield and Milner asked ix by seven lead singer and their longtime hero Chris Olley to add another dimension to Zoetrope by way of a remix. He obliged by creating a doom-laden ocean of drones that transform Milner’s looped vocals into an ominous warning. Meanwhile, filmmaker Simon Peecock’s atmospheric video accompanying the single was screened at Birmingham Film Festival in November 2023 and nominated for two awards. Remix duties for Belligerents fell to leftfield Australian transgender pop maven Katie Dey. The edit is the polar opposite of Olley’s, amplifying the track’s bright energy.
As Supercaan enter a new era, A Tiger Walks the Streets offers perspective in a time that has left so many of us jaded. In an elusive search for the answers, the band  unearth their biggest, boldes