Executive Overview
In the shadowy borderlands where avant-garde cabaret meets literary horror, few entities loom as large or as distinctively as The Tiger Lillies. Fronted by the inimitable, falsetto-wielding founder Martyn Jacques, the legendary dark-cabaret trio has once again turned its collective gaze toward the grotesque, the uncanny, and the historical abyss. The occasion is the release of a freshly reimagined, stripped-down acoustic rendition and official music video for "Rats"—a song deeply rooted in the macabre soil of H.P. Lovecraft’s seminal 1924 short story, "The Rats in the Walls."
Timed perfectly to coincide with the hallowed eve of Halloween, the video’s premiere acted as a clarion call for fans of the dark, the theatrical, and the beautifully disturbing. Directed by acclaimed Berlin-based photographer and filmmaker Andrey Kezzyn—who previously collaborated with the band on the striking visual for "Stupid Life" from their 2025 release Serenade from the Sewer—the new video breathes fresh, terrifying life into a composition that has haunted the margins of the band’s discography for two decades.
This latest iteration discards the industrial electronics and ambient spoken-word interludes of its 2005 origins, returning the track to the raw, visceral instrumentation that defines the core Tiger Lillies sound: accordion, double bass, drums, and percussion, all anchored by Jacques’s hauntingly delicate yet chilling falsetto and augmented by a rich undercurrent of backing vocals.
Beyond its cinematic release, "Rats" anchors a busy operational period for the band. It serves as a cornerstone of their ongoing performance cycle, notably featuring on the setlist for Songs for the Dead, the trio’s immersive Day of the Dead concert staged at the newly expanded Soho Theatre Walthamstow. Distributed independently through their own label, Misery Guts Music, this release underscores the band’s enduring artistic autonomy, proving that after more than three decades of provocation, theatricality, and musical alchemy, The Tiger Lillies remain singular architects of the avant-garde underground.
Detailed Chronology: From Lovecraftian Text to Modern Cabaret Masterpiece
To understand the weight and resonance of "Rats," one must trace its journey backward through literary history, avant-garde collaborations, and decades of theatrical evolution.
The Literary Genesis: 1924
H.P. Lovecraft penned "The Rats in the Walls" in the late summer of 1923, and it was published in Weird Tales in February 1924. The narrative follows an American descendant of the cursed de la Poer family—later anglicized to Delapore—who seeks to restore his ancestral home, Exham Priory, deep in the English countryside. Beneath the crumbling foundations of the ancient estate, the protagonist uncovers unspeakable horrors: a subterranean labyrinth where his aristocratic ancestors engaged in generations of industrial-scale human husbandry, breeding men and women in cages like livestock to satisfy their depraved appetites.
Driven mad by the ceaseless, phantom scuttling of rodents behind the masonry and the inherited bloodlust of his lineage, the narrator ultimately snaps. The tale concludes in the stark confines of Hanwell Asylum, where the broken heir insists, amidst frantic gibberish, that the rats devoured his friend, Captain Norrys, while an ancestral curse pulled him back into the primordial slime.
The 2005 Mountains of Madness Collaboration
Eighty-one years after Lovecraft’s text shocked pulp readers, Martyn Jacques translated this psychological downward spiral into musical form. In August 2005, at the cavernous Arena Berlin, The Tiger Lillies premiered Mountains of Madness—an ambitious Lovecraftian cabaret created in partnership with Alexander Hacke of the legendary Berlin industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten and visionary artist Danielle de Picciotto.
This staging marked a watershed moment for The Tiger Lillies. Traditionally staunch adherents of acoustic instrumentation, the trio incorporated Hacke’s heavy electronic soundscapes, synthesized drones, and spoken-word interludes directly into their arrangements. The original studio recording, titled "Rats (In The Walls)," captured a tense, industrial-gothic hybrid where Jacques’s vocals battled against synthetic pulses and the scratching resonance of Adrian Stout’s musical saw.
The Evolution and Strip-Down to Acoustic Purity
Fast forward nearly twenty years, and The Tiger Lillies have opted to clear the digital canvas. The newly released version of "Rats" strips away Hacke’s industrial electronics entirely, returning the composition to the foundational acoustics that built the band’s reputation in the smoky clubs of Soho.
Driven by Jacques’s accordion, Stout’s resonant double bass, and the intricate percussion of drummer Budi Butenop, the track relies on organic textures to evoke the claustrophobia of Exham Priory. Jacques assumes the role of the unreliable narrator and gaslighter-in-chief, offering listeners the very same alibi given to the asylum guards: after building an atmosphere of creeping dread—signaled by phantom smells and shifting shadows—he reassures the audience in a high, disarming falsetto that the mutilated, rotting corpse hidden deep within the foundations is "all in your mind of course."
The Soho Theatre Connection and Live Incarnations
The song’s lifecycle is deeply intertwined with the institutional history of London’s Soho Theatre. A blistering live performance of the track, captured during the band’s celebrated residencies at the venue’s Dean Street home, was immortalized on the live album Live in Soho.
This enduring relationship found a new stage on November 1, when "Rats" took pride of place in the setlist for Songs for the Dead, a special Day of the Dead concert presented at the Soho Theatre Walthamstow.
Supporting Context & Metrics: The Players and the Production
The enduring vitality of The Tiger Lillies rests on a foundation of rigorous musicianship, theatrical lineage, and a fiercely independent operational model.
The Lineage and Personnel
- Martyn Jacques (Founder, Vocals, Accordion, Piano): A self-taught musician and falsetto vocalist whose distinct performance style was forged during the early 1980s living in the demi-monde of London’s Soho. Drawing heavily on the socio-political cabaret of Weimar-era Germany—specifically the works of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill—Jacques infused theatrical punk provocation into traditional cabaret structures when he founded The Tiger Lillies in 1989.
- Adrian Stout (Double Bass, Musical Saw, Theremin, Backing Vocals): Joining the fold in 1995, Stout expanded the band’s sonic palette, introducing the haunting, ethereal whine of the musical saw and the eerie frequencies of the theremin. His upright bass provides the deep, anchoring heartbeat that balances Jacques’s manic accordion work.
- Budi Butenop (Drums, Percussion): A seasoned veteran of the Berlin underground theatre scene, crust-punk bands, and American roots projects, Butenop settled in London in 2015 before officially joining the trio’s rhythm section in December 2021. His dynamic, nuanced percussion work bridges the gap between chaotic punk energy and disciplined cabaret timing.
Independent Infrastructure: Misery Guts Music
Operating completely outside the machinery of major record labels, The Tiger Lillies release the vast majority of their extensive catalog through their own independent imprint, Misery Guts Music. This operational independence allows the band to curate a prodigious output—spanning dozens of studio albums, collaborative theatre scores, and live recordings—without artistic compromise.
Visual Collaboration: Andrey Kezzyn
The visual translation of "Rats" was entrusted to Berlin-based photographer and filmmaker Andrey Kezzyn. Known for his richly staged, cinematic vignettes that echo classical portraiture infused with surrealist darkness, Kezzyn has established a potent creative dialogue with the band. His direction of the "Rats" video follows his striking work on "Stupid Life," a single drawn from the band’s 2025 release Serenade from the Sewer. Kezzyn’s lens captures the grotesque elegance of Jacques’s performance, setting the aural madness of Lovecraft’s text against a backdrop of muted, expressionistic lighting and unsettling human drama.
Official Statements & Artistic Vision
While The Tiger Lillies have traditionally allowed their music and transgressive stage shows to speak for themselves, interviews and production notes surrounding the Mountains of Madness project and subsequent releases shed light on their fascination with the weird fiction of H.P. Lovecraft.
In contemporaneous notes regarding the 2005 Berlin collaboration, the creators noted that Lovecraft’s universe—characterized by cosmic indifference, hereditary guilt, and repressed ancestral madness—serves as a natural thematic parallel to the human darkness explored in European cabaret. Where Brecht and Weill used the cabaret stage to critique the socio-economic rot of the Weimar Republic, The Tiger Lillies use it to excavate the psychological and physiological rot buried beneath the veneer of civilization.
Martyn Jacques’s vocal delivery in "Rats" is central to this artistic mission. By employing a delicate, almost childlike falsetto to articulate unspeakable atrocities—cannibalism, incest, and descent into absolute lunacy—Jacques creates a jarring cognitive dissonance. The listener is lulled by a semblance of theatrical beauty even as the lyrics drag them down into subterranean vaults filled with gnawing teeth and corrupted bloodlines.
The decision to strip away Alexander Hacke’s industrial electronics in this new 2025/2026 iteration marks a conscious return to the band’s core identity. It reflects an ongoing refinement of their craft: proving that the true terror of The Rats in the Walls does not require synthetic amplification to resonate, but rather relies on the resonant scrape of a double bass string, the sigh of an accordion bellows, and the chilling reassurance that the horrors lurking in the dark are entirely “all in your mind.”
Future Outlook: The Endless Tour of the Macabre
As The Tiger Lillies look toward the horizon, their relentless touring schedule and prolific recording ethos show no signs of slowing down. Having cemented their status as global ambassadors of dark cabaret, the trio continues to bridge underground theatre and contemporary music scenes across Europe, the Americas, and beyond.
The successful rollout of the "Rats" music video and its integration into live performances—such as the Songs for the Dead residency at Soho Theatre Walthamstow—demonstrates the band’s unique ability to continually mine their extensive catalog, breathing new life into older compositions through fresh arrangements and striking visual accompaniments.
With fans eagerly digesting material from recent projects like Serenade from the Sewer and revisiting foundational milestones such as Mountains of Madness, The Tiger Lillies remain a vital, uncompromising force in independent music. Whether performing in intimate theatrical spaces or large European concert halls, Martyn Jacques, Adrian Stout, and Budi Butenop continue to carve out a singular, unholy space where literature, history, and musical virtuosity collide.
Listeners can stream the newly released official video for "Rats" directly via YouTube, while the 2005 original studio recording, Rats (In The Walls), remains available for purchase and streaming via the band’s official Bandcamp page under the banner of Mountains of Madness.
