“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is a good as dead: his eyes are closed.” – Albert Einstein

This Einstein character, perhaps a bit of a smart alec but he’s on the money with this, no? There’s a lot to be said for the allure of the mysterious and the unknown, and certain enigmas that torment and tickle our grey matter will never be answered. How many grains of sand are there on the Earth? Why do fools fall in love? Where is the internet kept? No, look I know that it is a network of networks and that but WHERE ACTUALLY IS IT? I want to go there! And so onwards away from the ridiculous and towards the sublime and into a current pondering troubling the collective brow of electronic music: Tiger & Woods.

Who are they? Where are they? What do they smell like? Some say when Tiger & Woods look in a mirror, they have no reflection. Some say Tiger & Woods can light a fire by rubbing two ice cubes together. Some say Tiger & Woods sold their soul to the devil for their rugged good looks and unparalleled aptitude for smashing out slow-burning, housed-up jams generously dipped in honeyed swagger. The story goes, shortly after the transaction was finalized, Tiger & Woods roundhouse kicked the devil in the face and took their soul back. The devil, who appreciates irony, couldn’t stay mad and admitted he should have seen it coming. Legend has it, they now play poker every second Wednesday of the month.

Whilst we know precious little about the duo behind some of the smoothest and most authentic disco-house edits to emerge in the past year, what we do know fo’ sho’ is that T&W’s offerings have the flavour of something altogether more enduring than perhaps the term ‘disco-house’ brings to mind. However beguiling the appeal of the power of the unknown, indeed it is only a small fraction of the charm of Tiger & Woods that keeps us locked in as they consistently churn out deep, chugging grooves in all their extended glory (*ahem*), laced with expertly sliced and diced loops that gradually build and build into an immensely satisfying breakdown.

To add a further layer of perplexity to this web of intrigue, after a trio of consistently strong EP’s on Editainment in 2009, T&W have seemingly been laid to rest for the time being and in their place the most recent release from the label now appears under the moniker of Cleo & Patra – well and truly loaded down with T&W hallmarks and a smattering of boogie-tinged meltpoints that overwhelmingly suggest that we should almost certainly embrace C&P as their reincarnation.

Here I’ve plumped for what I regard as both a classic T&W jaunt and a more recent flex. Firstly for posterity is Gin Nation, the track that originally hooked me into their audio hypnosis early last year, and secondly the most recent dose of freshness on the On The Nile EP under the Cleo umbrella Walking On A Sunshine, a cheeky cut that dovetails classic Rockers Revenge (which in turn samples Eddy Grant circa 1979) and Justus Kohncke’s 2004 deep house classic Timecode.

With live dates on the horizon it seems the shroud of puzzlement enrobing T&W is about to be whipped off with a flourish; I for one will be savouring these last few days of only-just-under-the-radar hype. Smoother than a waxed seal-pup.

[wpaudio url="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12066362/Gin%20Nation.mp3" text="TIGER & WOODS - GIN NATION" dl="0"]

[wpaudio url="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12066362/01%20Walk%20Like%20An%20Egyptian.mp3" text="CLEO & PATRA - WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN" dl="0"]