Tigermilk

Tigermilk is the 1996 debut album from Scottish pop group Belle and Sebastian. Originally given a limited release (1,000 copies) by Electric Honey, the album was subsequently re-released in 1999 by Jeepster Records.

The album is named after an instrumental that did not end up on the album – it was later performed on Belle and Sebastian's early tours. All of the songs on the album were written by Stuart Murdoch between 1993 and 1996, and originally performed solo on the Glasgow open mic circuit. Though he performs on the album, trumpet player Mick Cooke was not then an official member of the band.

Recording and production
Belle and Sebastian formed after vocalist Stuart Murdoch and bassist Stuart David met at a café in Glasgow, Scotland in January 1996. The pair reportedly enlisted the first five musicians they came across, settling on a line-up of Murdoch, David, guitarist Stevie Jackson, drummer Richard Colburn, keyboardist Chris Geddes and cellist Isobel Campbell. Their initial performances took places at venues such as church crypts, libraries and house parties. Concurrently, Murdoch attended a music business course at the local Stow College, run by Alan Rankine of the Associates. The end goal of the course was to take two songs from the class and record and release them through Rankine's record label Electric Honey. Murdoch's material was eventually chosen; the band subsequently spent three days recording, finishing with an album's worth of songs.

He and Colburn provided a demo tape the group had recorded titled Rhode Island (later released as the Dog on Wheels EP) and the college was extremely impressed and chose to support them in creating a full album.

Murdoch recalls that the group was still quite loose knit at the time Tigermilk was recorded and that the full ensemble had not played together before getting into the studio. Many of the supporting instrument parts were shaped as the group recorded. After recording, though, "we were a group, no question."

Composition
Author Dave Thompson, in his book Alternative Rock (2000), called it as a "gentle masterpiece, utterly in debt to Nick Drake (and a bit of Donovan too)". He said "The State I Am In", the album's opening track, "buoys the occasional sag; that and the slickly loose instrumentation, harmonies which haunt the fringe of fear, and a wealth of emotionally crippled reflection." Nine of the ten songs featured on the album were recorded live over a three-day period, followed by two days of mixing. The only track not recorded during these sessions, "Electronic Renaissance", originated as a demo Murdoch made at Beatbox using Cubase, and was mastered directly from a cassette recording Murdoch had made of the song being played on a local radio station, hence its lo-fidelity sound. Due to its stylistic difference from the other songs, its inclusion on the album initially proved controversial.

Release
Electric Honey issued Tigermilk in mid-1996, initially limited to 1,000 copies, which sold out in months. The band received praised from BBC radio DJs John Peel and Mark Radcliffe, subsequently earning them a radio session for the latter DJ in July 1996. Colburn said "then record companies and fans started calling, and we thought 'My God, what have done? They soon signed to the London-based label Jeepster Records. Tigermilk was reissued in 1999; by this point, copies of the original were being sold for $600.

The album's cover photograph was taken by Murdoch and features his girlfriend Joanne Kenney. Kenney also appeared on the cover of the Dog on Wheels EP.

Legacy
Tigermilk was well-received upon its initial release, and earned a glowing review from Scottish culture magazine The List, who gave the band their first national press. The album has since sold over 124,000 copies. Pitchfork included "The State I Am In" at number 17 on their Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s. The album was included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

An eBay charity auction of the stuffed animal in the cover art of the Tigermilk album in 2019 was won by Lisa Carr of Washington, DC. Lisa Carr had also previously won an auction for bandleader Stuart Murdoch's car in 2002 and an auction of the stuffed animal on the cover of Dog on Wheels in 2004.

Personnel

 * Stuart Murdoch – vocals, guitar, programming on "Electronic Renaissance"
 * Stuart David – bass
 * Isobel Campbell – cello
 * Chris Geddes – keyboards, piano
 * Richard Colburn – drums
 * Stevie Jackson – guitar
 * Mick Cooke – trumpet
 * Joe Togher – violin
 * Keith Jones – Korg Poly-61 synthesizer, sound manipulation on "Electronic Renaissance"