Teeth of the Sea have shared the video for new track ‘Butterfly House’ taken from their upcoming album, Hive (Rocket Recordings, 6th Oct).
‘Butterfly House’ marks a new journey for Teeth Of The Sea. Always fans of synth-pop and Italo-disco, a combination of serendipity and instinct led them to combine forces with vocalist and songwriter Kath Gifford (Snowpony, Sleazy Tiger, The Wargs) to create a radiant shard of neon-tinted melancholia. Less visited by the spectres of Baltimora, Bobby O and Laura Branigan than it is a haunting ode to loss and dislocation rendered in vivid colours, it’s a song that marks a meeting point between the dancefloor and the ether.
Watch the video here:
AA
Fundamental to Teeth Of The Sea’s mission thus far is that this band can go anywhere and make short work of any obstacles in their path. Unfettered by genre distinctions or expectations, the only limits of this trio – comprising Sam Barton, Mike Bourne and Jimmy Martin – are those of its imagination. It therefore follows that inspiration flowed into Hive from all dimensions, with the band’s sphere of influence – the science fiction, trash culture and cinematic atmospherics by which they’ve fuelled their mission thus far – expanding to take in everything from Italo-disco to minimal techno, from dubbed-out studio madness to their most brazen forays thus far into pop songwriting. Here is a headspace where the psychic charges from records by Labradford, Nurse With Wound, Vangelis, The Knife, Nine Inch Nails and John Barry can happily co-exist.
These disparate pathways cohere and coalesce to create a vivid experience rich with emotion and intrigue. A commission to create a live soundtrack at London’s Science Museum for a documentary on the Apollo moon landings gave flight to the trilogy of tracks – Artemis, Æther and Apollo which are summarily imbued with the dreamlike wonder and existential peril of the mission itself. A collaboration with vocalist Kath Gifford (Snowpony, The Wargs, Sleazy Tiger) set loose ‘Butterfly House’, which transmutes synthpop stylings into something uniquely radiant, haunting and melancholic. Get With The Program – sung by Mike Bourne – is meanwhile no less than a noise-fuelled, speaker-shaking electro-industrial banger.
Hive is more than just a transformative force from subterranean origins. It’s an alchemical headspace where monochrome animates into vivid colour. It may not be a carefully ordered insectoid militia set to overthrow society, but it’s a transmission which transcends anything Teeth Of The Sea have thus far offered in their time on Earth.
Step inside Hive, if you dare.
Photo credit: Al Overdrive
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