Do you know about Treasure Teeth?! TREASURE TEETH, TREASURE TEETH, TREASURE TEETH!
We have the exclusive streaming of their new EP, Sell Your Gold, which will be available to buy September 9 on vinyl as well as digital. Get to know these two in the interview below or essays online listen to them in their own recorded interview for Alt Citizen.
Alt Citizen Interview by TREASURE TEETH
The use of sound effects plays a significant role in Treasure Teeth’s music, are these sound effects self produced or samples?
James: They’re both really, kind of straight down the middle 50/50 between sounds we’ve recorded ourselves and sounds we’ve sampled from other artists/videos/movies/tv etc. One thing that is shared between the sounds we’ve recorded ourselves and the things that we’ve sampled, is the processing. We can really morph a sound into our own little creation. We usually process sounds or “samples” to the point where they become completely removed from the original source material, whatever that may be.
We’ve sampled some things from our vinyl collections back in our old homes (The Cosmos, Supertramp, William Byrd, King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, & Czech Folk songs to name a few), as well as sample kits created by friends of ours, such as Circuitree Records, and also crazy sample packs we’ve found online from mainstream artists such as Prince, Kanye West, Pitbull, J Dilla, Wu-Tang Clan, Ying Yang Twins, 5 folders of Arabic vocal syllables. It’s endless.
Barbara : A lot of our songs have been recorded in different places. I think one of our tracks, Aquariums was birthed in London in 2010 (where you can hear us in my back garden treading on crispy leaves and squishing water bottles full of gas onto a BBQ to make a gushing noise), continued in Sumterville, Florida 9 months or so later, and finally finished in New York.
Place is so important to us, and I think there’s something rather romantic about a 5 minute song containing all that place in it, knitted through sound, it’s magic. And these feelings still translate towards our use of samples that we haven’t self-recorded, for example Prince. We use a lot of Prince samples, (though you would never recognize them on the tracks as they are slight things such as a snare, or hit, or a section of a bass line), but it’s still magical, it’s still place, and though I wasn’t the one who recorded it, it’s just as important. To simplify, it might conjure up the first place & time we heard Prince, that sample, or that song. It’s not really ersatz nostalgia for someone else’s recording that has nothing to do with us, but plain nostalgia for the place and time we experienced the sound ourselves, in our lives.
James : I think we really love that through the sounds we record ourselves, we let the environment seep through into it. I feel it would be lying in a way, to eradicate all traces of the natural ambient sounds of the space that you’re in when you’re making music. This may just be that the majority of my recording experience has been home recording without proper isolation, I feel the little things you pick up doing this gives atmosphere and a feeling of space, that I would like to recreate even if I had all the possibilities in the world at my fingertips.
Barbara : As for everything else, we record a lot of it ourselves. I play the viola and James plays the piano/keys. We also work with a lot of software for our tracks, such as Reason, Reaktor, Massive, Max MSP and more, and through processing, these all add up to the “sound effect” like qualities of the sounds.
Are your recorded songs difficult to reproduce live?
Barbara : It can be for sure. Recording and performance are almost two entirely different things. Sometimes you have to approach both with a different mindset. And often you have to make a choice which kind of route you wish to descend into. And whether it’s a route (these are extreme) of emulating the electronic noises from scratch or almost performing as if you were a “DJ”, both we feel are as relevant as the other. Since we are fundamentally an electronic band, live it’s inevitably going to be electronic due to our circumstances (equipment, there’s only two of us). The transition from a recorded track to a live performance tends to be sample based for us right now, However that’s not to say we might want to change things up a bit and involve a guard of backing singers, or instrumentalists, for example.
James : Live, I work with the percussive samples on an SP 404, whilst running it through a Line-6 Delay pedal and Reverb Pedal. a homemade synth, and play live keyboards. Barbara sings, triggers background vocal samples on another SP, processes her vocals through Ableton live via laptop, and also plays keyboards. She plays viola really well, so we’re currently working the viola into our live shows more and more. So there is a balance of prerecorded tracks and live playing. And we really believe in samplers and laptops being instruments in themselves.
We really see the beautiful benefits of electronic music; it allows one person to do a multitude of endless sonic wonders, impossibilities become a reality. You can pluck bells and bow an oboe. It’s fun and important to embrace that.
Barbara : I guess the difficulty really just lies in the choices you make, and what your personals beliefs are in regards to what an “interesting” performance is.
What inspires you to write such experimental music?
Barbara : That’s funny, we don’t really think we are too experimental. We actually think we’re pretty Pop, maybe experimental pop?
In terms of creating the tracks, we don’t necessarily directly gain influence from experimental music, though we really love it. Inspiration comes from anywhere really. Recently I’ve been pretty inspired by Cat Power’s new hairdo, and I think that has made it’s abstract presence on a few vocal takes recently…
James : Usually we try not to be too premeditative with our music, we like to let things happen honestly and naturally. That said there still might be sounds, or effects, samples or ideas that we might hear and try to steal, and that’s a natural part of being an artist, really. Genuinely interesting music always has a place in our hearts, and that can be polished pop, hip-hop, R&B as well as droning noise music.
How has moving to Bushwick influenced your creative process?
James : It’s not really like anywhere either one of us have lived before. There seems to be an ever-growing community of musicians/artists and what not locally, which is always nice. To be honest, we find ourselves indoors most of the time recording. We live in a basement apartment that feels like a submarine, as there are no windows, so it’s easy to lose sense of time and place. Thus we’ve been pretty productive here.
Barbara : There is an air of desperation here, (NY in general, not just Bushwick) and our exposure to that certainly has had an effect on us, whether it’s a negative or positive effect, we’re not so sure. We were working hard on our music before we got here, but we have somehow found ourselves working even harder. There is definitely an ethic of getting things done to a degree of ridiculous unreal excellence in New York.
James : Recently we have been experiencing the local area a little better as we have gotten to know more people here more. We definitely can’t imagine settling down here, we’re planning our eventual next move. We both have a mutual feeling of wanderlust and aren’t too comfortable staying in one environment for too long.
What can your audience expect to hear from your new EP?
Barbara : 5 tracks written and recorded in London, West Palm Beach, Sumterville FL, and New York (Harlem & Bushwick) between September 2010 and November 2011. Like we’ve mentioned before, place is really important to us; we’ve lived in 5 different places over the course of a year. We feel our surroundings are fundamental to our creativity (be it whether we’re trying to transcend or envelop ourselves in those surroundings actively or subconsciously), and so you can certainly feel elements of spatial displacement between the 5 tracks. Which is nice.
James : This EP, we feel, builds a good understanding and ground for our further works we have created since its completion, and our further works to come (LP).
To describe the music itself, we’d say it’s melodic pop filtered through a cold dungeon-like underground Londonesque club that is somehow located in the sun beaten tropical paradise ghetto that is Little Haiti. Once removed to Bushwick. Again to be removed, probably.
What is it like writing music as a duo?
Barbara : Both of us have a history of making music solely by ourselves, recording, producing and mixing, and we can both say that it’s definitely easier alone in some ways, when you have complete control of all aspects of what you do and what you want to create. I come from a background where I have always wanted to collaborate musically, but found it rather hard due to personality clashes, and a lack of confidence in myself, however you meet the right person every now and then, where you don’t feel like an utter retard, and it makes sense. It’s great really, because we work together on everything, and though there may be disagreements, we know that it’s for the better of the music and that we both want what is best. We find compromises.
James : It’s cool.
There is a psychedelic/ambience texture radiating throughout your music. What artists do you find your selfs drawing creative inspirations from?
Barbara : We really honestly love all music, and can say that the creative inspirations we amalgamate tends to transcend the art & music worlds. There are historic and environmental factors that have built up over time and made us what we are and that really inevitable makes our music, whether we decide it or not.
The most inspiring of all is finding kind, inviting and helpful individuals. When we meet welcoming, engaging people (who are open and honest about what they do musically), it’s really the most impressive of all. We recently spoke to Laurel Halo after one of her shows and found her to be so charming, lovely and open about her music… And I’ll say her music’s inspirational too.
James : Dan Deacon is a pretty awesome character. Coming from a music school background I can really relate to him. Also, this Danish friend of ours named Goodiepal is a fascinating man too. Google him yo!
Barbara : So to conclude, where we’ve been drawing inspiration, it’s been more within the areas of how to live our lives doing what we do, as opposed to direct musical influence. It’s nice to have forward-thinking friends and family too, that you can bounce ideas off, and help each other reach the next level.
Anything to keep in mind while we listen to your music?
Both : Probably not!
Listen to Treasure Teeth’s new album Sell Your Gold streaming exclusively on Alt Citizen. How cool is that?! And buy the EP on vinyl or digital 9-9-12!
Treasure Teeth – Sell Your Gold by True Nature 98101
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Story / Photos: Nasa Hadizadeh
Interview: Dewey Frechette
Post: King Isaac, Ruben Illa
Album Art: Clay Standley
Upcoming shows:
28th August – Big Snow Buffalo Lodge with Sh[]d[]w B[]x & Rarechild,
9th September – Public Assembly – EP Release party with Dark Sister, Nick Klein, Tubetops & more.Do you know about Treasure Teeth?! TREASURE TEETH, TREASURE TEETH, TREASURE TEETH!
We have the exclusive streaming of their new EP,
