Release of the Day: Treasure Teeth - Transatlantic Consultant/Romantic Impulse

“Schizoid” is an umbrella term. It often demands the connotation of being split, heterogenous, or uncertain, though as a word derived from, and permutated to encompass, mental illnesses, “schizoid” can describe someone or something aloof, dissociated, withdrawn, unable to form warm relationships, or one affected by schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder. As a descriptor, it can be used in tracing a fractured human, city, idea, theme, ethic, or one characterized by malaise and apathy.

Throughout “Thought Forms In the Mouth,” Treasure Teeth manipulate and distort the innocuous phrase “All my friends care for me” into beautiful and monstrous renderings, backdropped by layered, percussive synthscapes. As much a celebration as a perversion of intent, the moment is indicative of the band’s Gestalt narrative. A person is bombarded by sentiments and interaction, at times personalized and at others clinical, which may appear friendly, unique, and, above all, genuine, but may not be. A person is expected to respond to it all, while also digesting each stimulus.

Treasure Teeth’s double EP Translatlantic Consultant/Romantic Impulse on Other Electricities is, above all, a meditation on duality. While side one maintains a hold on pop songwriting, side two is more experimental and instrumental. It’s an effective way to bring the listener a taste of the band’s expertise in journeying, evocative mood. Side two boasts both songs with vocals and entirely instrumental pieces, one of which is a live recording from Miami Music Club “Banana,” exhibiting the elements of improvisation that make up an important part of the live Treasure Teeth experience.

So perhaps “schizoid” only partially applies to Transantlatic Consultant/Romantic Impulse. Far from being apathetic or standoffish, Treasure Teeth is a band at ease with its many sounds and structures. It couldn’t be compared as much to multiple personality disorder as to diffracted light. As light enters and exits a prism, or light-dispersing object, it multiplies into many-colored offspring, nature’s choose-your-own-adventure book; and while the symptoms or progeny of diffracted light are manyfold, each is true to the original source.