TEETH COLLECTION "Fire Mouth/Smoke Breather" (Longlongchaney)

The mistakes of lo-fidelity recording become the techniques of high fidelity composing on this hypnotizer. The pulsing that drives "Fire Mouth" moves back and forth between overly compressed lo end and peaking the red distortion that is neither loping nor repetitive. The compelling narrative of this interplay then moves into a world of over the top echoing, not to be unexpected from this prolific act that focuses on home-made reverb chambers. Thinking about the landfill of droney cassettes being made these days is one of my least favorite pass times. I absolutely love great drone, but with so much "just plug the delay pedal in and moan" shit going on, I am typically uninterested in checking new acts describing themselves this way. But an act like Teeth Collection is why I remain such a huge drone fan. Not that I expect Teeth Collection to be self-proclaimed drone. The hippy noise world I think has entrenched the word drone in such an aesthetic purity that music this interesting and aesthetically diverse is no longer a part of the club... both by art dogma and well needed politics. But now that I've dragged Teeth Collection well into my own agenda without their consent, I'll get back to why this particular tape rules hard. "Smoke Breather" succeeds in the same way as "Fire Mouth." While the masterful narrative of the piece moves from one world of timbre to an entirely different one (here from near-wall harshness to completely vacant bottom tones), the atmospheric function of the sounds remains similar the whole way through. Despite the great difference in sounds within each piece, the mood is kept uniform. It is in this way that a I argue a true DRONE is created; a hypnotizing of the listener that is just using the right amount of dynamics to keep your ears awake. It is there that so much drone fails, in that is just is beddy-bye music. Teeth Collection will put you under a spell, not just make you pass out completely.

TEETH COLLECTION / MIGRATIONS IN RUST split (ESR)

Recently I was lucky enough to get a chunk of the new batch from Matthew Reis' Epicene / ESR label (the former is for vinyl and CDs, the latter for short-run tapes, CD-rs, etc.), and they all look pretty stellar with nicely designed pro-printed color inserts. Teeth Collection is the prolific alias of Mr. Reis himself. In a previous review I had guessed that synthesizers might be his primary sound generators, but it turns out that the strange tones Teeth Collection employs are in fact homemade reverb chambers. This explains why material from this project has a distinctive sound that one doesn't hear too often. The two unnamed tracks on this split are even more lethargic in feel than past releases and noticeably minimal to great effect. The feeling which Reis' work has conjured in the past of passing slowly through decaying industrial wastelands is still alive and possibly more realized than before. Never having heard Migrations in Rust, I was surprised to find that its sole member is Jesse Allan of the NY noise duo The Cathode Terror Secretion. This is about as far away sonically from that project as you can get. "Thrust Against This Horrid Machine, We Shudder As Its Voice Is Opened To Us" (great name) is an unbelievably sublime ambient composition focusing on shifting layers of submerged melodies. It easily rivals anything being produced today in this vein. Allan has previously used a laptop in performance with The Cathode Terror Secretion, but it's difficult to tell whether it's in use here (to reassure anyone with a negative disposition towards the "L" word). Another impressive release from ESR, and sure to disappear soon.

TEETH COLLECTION "Sloth Movement" (Peasant Magik)

Teeth Collection is the alias of one Matthew Reis who also runs a label from Dayton, OH called Epicene. "Sloth Movement" offers a slew of obscure and dark electronics, low end crunch and assorted synthesizer material. A foreboding, claustrophobic touch seeps through everything. The first listen seemed drawn out, but on repeated plays the variety grows on you. The heavily atmospheric starter on side A is a favorite, featuring eerie and somber drones that unexpectedly jump to higher frequencies only to crash immediately back into the muck. On the flip, loud metallic scrapes (prepared guitar?) make way for an echo heavy oscillation jam and a harsh, psychedelic conclusion. The clouded industrial landscape on the cover sums it up pretty well. Edition of 50.
www.peasantmagik.net
www.epicenesound.com