Tobacco Rat is the alias of multi-award winning WA producer/composer Jake Steele (Injured Ninja, Yarhkob). This new audio/visual incarnation delves deep into dark, subterranean music styles with a reflectively futuristic and theatrical stage presence.
Field recordings taken from scouring construction yards and dragging out all manner of scrap metal and machinery parts, are recorded into industrial-sounding samples and mixed with analogue synthesizers and various effect pedals and units. The result is wild, heavy beats with warped, bass-led grooves.
Tobacco Rat is not just a musical project, but a whole visual identity, ideally experienced live with Steele incorporating custom built reactive visuals, live camera feeds and 3D manipulations. The visuals are complemented with an imposing and eerie human sized albino rat shadowing the stage.