Biography

Multifaceted musician Victor Axelrod goes by a number of aliases depending on the particular style he's covering, but his most prominent persona is Ticklah, a project he created as an outlet for roots reggae. Even with a background spanning jazz, funk, and soul outlets, reggae revivalism revealed itself as the most suitable genre for the keyboardist/producer due to a natural knack for re-creating the trippy vintage Jamaican sounds of King Tubby and Lee Perry. In 1998, Axelrod recorded his first Ticklah album, Polydemic, on Razorfish Records. Despite its release under a moniker created strictly for differentiating his solo reggae releases from his other endeavors, Polydemic incorporated an abundance of groovy Herbie Hancock jazz jams and featured some collaborations with other musicians. Confounding things further, in 2001 he put out his second solo album on Guidance Records, but this time under the name Roots Combination due to prior contractual obligations with Razorfish that prevented him from using the Ticklah moniker. Although he performed the entire album on his own, to add authenticity to the release (which was packaged as the work of a collective), Axelrod credited the songs to fictitious performers such as Calbert Walker, Rootical Sound, and Sonic Boom. Continuing down his path of schizophrenic output, in 2008 he reverted back to Ticklah and released Ticklah vs. Axelrod, an album that channeled both aspects of his musical personality, his dub reggae side and his multi-instrumental side. ~ Jason Lymangrover, Rovi