REVIEW : TEEBS - ARDOUR

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Genre : Ambient/Glitch-Hop/Instrumental Hip-Hop/Hip-Hop/Dream-Hop

Year : 2010

Label : Brainfeeder

With strong ties to fecund beat collectives Brainfeeder and My Hollow Drum, attending the 2008 Red Bull Music Academy in Barcelona and brushing shoulders with the creatively mighty and a growing repertoire of mesmerizingly relevant sonic synchronicity of nonconcentric beats and calico ambiance (which include collaborations with artists like Jackhigh and Yuk. and production duties on Suzi Analogue’s NNXTAPE), skater, musician and visual artist extraordinaire Teebs aka Metendere Mandowa has become a fixture of LA’s by leaps and bounds flourishing and vibrant beats scene (read Low End Theory).  Sharing the common attributes of creating aural vignettes with a plethora of digital paraphernalia with Brainfeeder peers, the Sun Ra worshipper Ras G and the abstract sound architect Flying Lotus; but, sticking out because of his idiosyncratic, bucolic and tranquil sound, Teebs showed first signs of promise with the self released ‘Teebs 09’ and his similarly adorned track ‘WLTA’, that was featured on Mary Anne Hobbs’ ‘Wild Angels’ compilation, in his versatile use of basslines and tweaked and knob twiddled atmospherics, just like his colourful paintings that stand out because of their lambency. In Flying Lotus’ words, “Teebs music is like a vacation island...the way Avatar looks”. On ‘The Tropics EP’, his recent collaboration, with Jackhigh, he took his sound to another level by creating vivid ambient textures on which he laid down pleasurable and stimulating dinging sounds to create a resonating experience. On what looks to be a great year for both the artist and the collectives he belongs to, Ardour serves as a natural progression from his humble beginnings to grand conceptual realizations of heavenly sublime that is both potent and a performance to remember and cherish.

Even on a casual listen, one knows that the record is a handiwork of a person who cherry-picks the beneficial demulcent sounds of the surroundings and uses them to please the senses. The use of chiming sounds, warm drum beats, chill inducing pads and gently caressing synth arpeggios, ringing and clanging bells and sounds of falling metallic objects and their channelization to elevate the soul away from the earthly madness amongst the stars is what this record does best; it has a very relaxed and spiritual vibe and the feeling that penetrates the psyche after listening to this record is as if one is relaxing and meditating in the Himalayas, disgorging the negative energies and injecting the body with renewed vigour (this wafture of utopian bliss evident in the track ‘Burner’ which transposes the sensation of bright positivity in the simultaneous ringing of rhapsodic bells infused with the sounds of gently dropped shells, the humming pads and scattered beats that take you closest to praying in a Tibetan temple on the beautiful snow-capped mountains). The detailed execution of this phantasmagorical theme alongside the dexterity of juggling genres to create a cohesive and impacting monolith packs this heady record with all the sheer beauty and sacrosanct profundity.

While his earlier solo work ‘Teebs 09’ (released and limited to 50 copies in 2009; but got passed on thanks to the internet) was an affecting record, it suffered a bit from the sameness of ideas that went behind constructing the tracks. On ‘Ardour’ however, he offers a variety that is distributed amongst the eighteen tracks, the hallmark being that you can step aside from the J Dilla comparisons, because this wholesome listening is miles away from the usually soul sampled, voice whittled and stuttering vocal offerings of most artists. The great part about listening to Teebs doing his magic is that he blankets the listener to create a cosy and warmth exuding ambiance, the mutating bassline is not the only offering, the radiant background is the highlight too. This ambient record is closer to Kona Triangle’s ‘Sing A New Sapling Into Existence’ that was released last year; but, way better (for the uninitiated check out the track ‘Mango Rubicon’) and sounds like the dub techno greats Rod Modell and Stephen Hitchell or Fluxion and Yagya working on Glitch-Hop. Take the case of tracks like ‘Bound Ball’, ‘Moments’, ‘Bern Rhythm’, ‘Felt Tip’ and ‘King Bathtub’ where the serene soundscape is prominently at showcase, wrapping the listener around its fingers.

Playful but not flippant, ‘Bound Ball’ summersets echo laden tangling, ringing and tingling metallic percussion of colliding bells and other objects that accentuate the glimmering and lovable, unfurling and chugging synth sounds and the gentle thump of the pirouetting beats. Ripping through the layers of unfolding dreamy and ethereal synths, and flanging them to great effect, Teebs reposes white washed other worldly textures, in ‘Moments’, by drawing out rivulets of deeply touching arpeggios, swarms of droning and shape shifting pads, softly clanging metallic handclaps into a rattling flow where the 3/4 beats in merriment oscillate between sub bass and clonks. The most enthralling of the lot, ‘Bern Rhythm’ is uber gorgeous, sybaritic and dazzling with the dispersed use of field recordings of yearning birds, the hissing purlieu, the tender xylophones and the jovially swaying guitar chords. ‘Felt Tip’, somewhat similar to Dem Hunger’s or Yuk.’s tracks in its use of crackling and hissing drones, is very simplistic and is propelled just by tapping beats, the 2-step mimicking clicking and rattling sounds and the occasional wooden strikes that are given good company by the moony and becalming synth chords that transport the track to a very fruitful and satisfying end. Emblazoning the track ‘King Bathtub’ in motley of colours and colourful patterns by passing his influences through a kaleidoscope or a prism, he achieves an awe-inspiring harmony between ingredients of the track. Sublime and empyrean, the overarching synths and the swirling synth arpeggios weaved into the tripping and sub bass hip-hop beats adding wings to you and serenading you. One can thus, with clarity and surety say that this record is more than a glitch-hop record.

A further testament of Teebs’ creative prowess, the pensive tracks of the album also work more as an anodyne rather than dampening the spirits. Most of these tracks are reworks of the tracks from ‘Teebs 09’ and it is good to see them with new sheen and lustre. The tracks that are weighed down but still serene are ‘While You Doooo’, ‘Gordon’, ‘My Whole Life’, ‘Why Like This?’, ‘Arthurs Birds’, ‘Humming Birds’ and ‘Autumn Antique’. The constantly blooming harps in ‘While You Doooo’, the Gas-esque loosening arpeggios in ‘Gordon’, the overwhelming string laden compression effects of ‘My Whole Life’ and ‘Humming Birds’ and the earlier Boards Of Canada-esque synth (‘Music Has The Right To Children’ era) studded glory of ‘Autumn Antique’ stand in contrast to the let down spirit of the tracks and serve as the driving force or inspirations to move away from this spirit.

Packaging perfectly, this layered and textured album, with thematic focal points is what heightens the experience and serves as the final nail that is hammered to this structure; these show stoppers include the sparsely beat driven tracks, the aforementioned ‘Burner’, the plush piano and vacillating cymbal driven jazzy track ‘Lakeshore Ave.’ and the Flying Lotus and Laura Darlington reminding laidback R&B track ‘Long Distance’, an opiate, which features Gaby Hernandez on the vocals whose whispers and coos airily float on the chirping sounds and the gently stirred background score.

Sharing an apartment complex with Flying Lotus and being roommates with Samiyam may have definitely opened the windows of this 23 year old producer’s mind but, the vision and dreaminess of this record is something that can be paralleled by very few, even from the clan that he belongs to. You listen to this record in tandem with any of timeless deep house Theo Parrish records and you will know what a great outing this is for this young producer. Remarkably so, he never bowed down in spite of the recent losses that he suffered in life – the death of his father and his source of bread and butter to produce this starkly breath taking record that is not just about getting high (as a lot of people would make it out to be), but something pure and untouched. This record comes highly recommended and another feather is now added to the cap of the LA’s burgeoning beats scene.

Rating : 8.9/10

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http://www.last.fm/music/Teebs

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