Tei Shi - Crawl Space - Review

Tei Shi- Crawl Space

The 2017, debut album Crawl Space delivers a curious and roundly enjoyable introduction to Valerie Teicher’s project, Tei Shi. With a production quality that warrants the acclaim the album received upon release, Crawl Space’s best moments come when Teicher’s ethereal vocals combine seamlessly with catchy riffs and pop-infused back beats and texture.

Launching us in to the album is a wonderfully creative tape-recorder motif that reappears periodically throughout the album. Keep Running is the album’s first musical track and feels very much like a hand-shake introduction to the album’s experimental and poppy textures and Teicher’s gorgeous vocal tones. While not necessarily a track that would demand repeated plays, its catchy, pleading chorus and head-bob inducing bass line is fantastic and creates curiosity in the listener; an auditory “please come in”. Spring boarding from this is Creep, a track that ups the ante in terms of production innovation. The manic, digital insertions that fill gaps in the sparse drumbeat are wonderful; nuggets of inspiration that stuck with me far longer than some of the album’s later filler tracks. The song’s threatening aura is built upon steadily via the periodic additions of distorted guitar licks and saxophone breakdowns. As the album’s world really starts to build, we come to Baby- so far Crawl Space’s best song. Shining like a Tame Impala B-side that has been scrubbed down, re-chromed and polished, the production quality is faultless. With each listen the ear hooks on to a new, intriguing texture. Furthermore the addictive “maybe/we thrive/” etc are highlights of the album; I found myself singing this melancholic melody repeatedly since hearing it for the first time. The indie/pop balance on this song is turned near all the way to the former, highlighting the beautiful composition ability of Teicher. The crispness of every component of this song from the winding guitar riffs to the dry drums and gentle percussion creates a longing for endless summer drives and hazy, golden walks. This Whitney-like, sunbeam of a song is undermined only by the album’s best song; the following track How Far. 

How Far acts as a perfect example of what makes this album great; a swirling hybrid of indie rock and pop, sewed together with shimmering vocal lines. With a driving bass line who’s riff is second only to Your World’s, the song becomes lodged in your brain and refuses to leave. The simple, punchy drums toe the line perfectly between pop and indie providing a steady foundation for which the track can build upon. While breath-taking, the high pitched breathy nature of Teicher’s vocals can at times throughout the album, become repetitive. However the vocal range in How Far, going from a low and intimate “if you please” to an emotional, fist clenching crescendo with “Oh, I told you I was coming for you” defies this and provides the most powerful moment in Crawl Space. This song with its threatening guitar riff during the chorus, low-lying woodwind and infuriatingly catchy melodies is truly fantastic, and provides a satisfying peak to the auditory ladder this album has been building so far. However this ladder is about to be severely knocked off balance. Following the best song on the album comes the worst. Teicher throws us from the peak of How Far in to the crevasse of Say You Do, a boring and generic pop song who’s flaws can’t be hidden by semi-experimental synth sounds or ironic nods to Rick Astley’s drum sounds. Falling from the joys of discovering a new artist on 6 Music to hearing a song you vaguely remember from high school when your friend refuses to turn Kiss FM off, Say You Do marks the end of Crawl Space’s awesome first third with a pathetic whimper. Not helped by the comical, spoken-word, call and responses that conjure memories of songs heard on parody GTA radio stations, the only excuse I can fathom is that this song is meant to be an offering to the pop Gods (as evidenced through the “I hope one day I can be like Britney Spears” tape recording that precedes the song). The Album never fully recovers after this apparent fatal blow, no matter how hard it cries ‘tis but a scratch. The bizarre trap beat of Justify while interesting, seems bizarre and out of place and can’t be saved by the still admirable vocal production. After an entirely forgettable Lift Me who’s middle-of-the-roadness is in some ways more irritating than Say You Do comes Como Si, a lovely tune who tries it’s hardest to reassemble Crawl Space. Introducing a Latin edge which up until this point has been restricted to the Spanish in the introductory tape recording, the song is a gorgeous Columbian soundscape that resurrects some of the summer-in-the-blood personality from Baby. While dynamically flat, the song acts a beacon of quality in the largely forgettable back 9 of the album. However, determined to immediately negate this comes Crawl, a Little Mix rip off which does a great job at trying to dislodge Say You Do as the album’s worst track. 

Reaching towards the end of the album, the final 3 songs do manage to establish a sense of quality again and provide an enjoyable slide out of the world Crawl Space has created. The dreamy and ruptured Year 3K manifests with some of the best drumming on the album as well as the addictive dragging, and jazzy guitar stabs. Throwing in some bass and guitar licks that made me smile, this song felt like I had had one too many during a summer lunch and had decided to spend a blistering afternoon in a hammock, drifting in and out of consciousness. Coming as a surprise in the end-game of this album, the wonderful, climbing guitar riff in Your World is the superb and had me singing along after just one listen. Harking back to the threatening riff on How Far, Your World is one of my favourites on the album; I simply wish it had taken the place of some of the mid album disappointments that bring Crawl Space’s overall enjoyability down. While consistent with the experimental textures found throughout the album, the overall, average track Sleepy leads us out of the album.

In conclusion I did enjoy this album. However the collapse in quality in the middle did spoil it somewhat for me. Upon first listen, I felt the album getting better and better up until How Far and couldn’t comprehend the sudden U-turn with tracks like Say You Do, Justify, Lift Me and Crawl. It would be wrong to argue that the production quality throughout isn’t brilliant , I just believe the contrast between the albums high points and low points take away considerably from my overall enjoyment of it. 

6/10

THERE YOU GO KITTY.