Teeth Mountain

Although Baltimore, Maryland may not be the home of the new wave of tribal sounds in underground music, it is most certainly one of that movement's centers — as evidenced by Teeth Mountain, which uses driving percussion in layers like some bands use guitars. The outfit's hypnotic drones, which at...

By Tom Murphy

August 7, 2008

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Although Baltimore, Maryland may not be the home of the new wave of tribal sounds in underground music, it is most certainly one of that movement's centers — as evidenced by Teeth Mountain, which uses driving percussion in layers like some bands use guitars. The outfit's hypnotic drones, which at times recall the Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat, suggest that its members also learned a thing or two from the heady intensity of Crash Worship and the exoticism of Brian Eno and David Byrne's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. There's an otherworldly sacredness to the band's music that doesn't sound like it could ever have come from a major urban center in these United States. If anything, it's closer to the music that the people of Bali perform during the Eka Dasa Rudra ritual.

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Tom Murphy is a writer, visual artist and musician from Aurora, Colorado. He was a prolific music writer for Westword and a documenter of the Denver music scene.

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