About
Little White Teeth
Tucked away in the antiquated confines of a century-old attic you’d expect to find treasures both elegant and threadbare. Fitting then that it’s precisely such a setting in which little white teeth came to be. Atop a house in one of San Diego’s oldest neighborhoods, a foursome whose name hints at some diminutive, corporeal expression of joy crafts a brand of melancholy indie rock that is as mottled and eclectic as its players.little white teeth is bassist/vocalist Phil Beaumont, guitarist Dmitri Dziensuwski, drummer Yuko Sugiyama and multi-instrumentalist Matt Resovich. As is often the case with like-minded musicianship, theirs was a coming together of odd yet serendipitous happenstance. Beaumont and Dziensuwski met on the basketball court of all places, during a pickup game at a local gym. The former came from the sparse, experimental music of Maquiladora; the latter had cut his teeth contributing to the live incarnation of the darkly emotive Black Heart Procession. After the bands toured together the two took to the attic above Beaumont’s home for a series of impromptu jam sessions. Beaumont’s wife, herself a then fledgling percussionist, listened for months to the pair’s unfinished ideas before finally deciding to climb the stairs and join them. It didn’t take long for the new threesome to compose an album’s worth of material. They began recording their self-titled debut in the spring of 2009, laying down the bulk of the tracks at Pall Jenkins’ SDRL studios. Looking to flesh out their sound a bit, the group turned to Resovich, whose talents can be heard in bands like the Album Leaf, the Black Heart Procession and Roll Film. The upshot is a sound that’s wistful, contemplative, autumnal—above all, versatile.
At times lilting, at times weighty with purpose, little white teeth’s debut album comprises a series of independent vignettes strung together with a common thread. Beaumont’s voice is by turns sonorous and falsetto, his bass lines muted and resonant. Dziensuwski’s guitar moves seamlessly from echoic to jangling, and Sugiyama’s punctuation is always fluidly articulate. With a deft touch, Resovich has brought violin, organ and banjo to the mix, infusing songs with lithe and sinuous instrumentation. It’s a capricious musical narrative spanning genres from chamber pop to country rock to dream pop. Analogies include bands like Crooked Fingers, Low, the National and Yo La Tengo.
little white teeth’s run heretofore has been curiously intercontinental in scope. The band played their first live show in Buenos Aires. They were asked by Tijuana’s Galatea arts collective to compose the score for the documentary film Tijuaneados Anonimos. And they were fortunate enough to perform live at the 2009 Morelia Film Festival. Whether at home or abroad, the band continues to quietly impress, leaving a growing cadre of fans showing little white teeth of their own. -Doug Wagner
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Neumos
