Teeth Mountain: Live @ ULU, London

The one redeeming feature of Singapore is its Night Safari. Visitors to the otherwise culturally fetid police state can wander through a dense artificial jungle and scan for marvelous noctural creatures that peek out through the shrubbery or flying leap across trees overhead. This Teeth Mountain place must be like a Singaporean Night Safari, for its eponymous band members create a similar appeal for gig-goers. 

The audio underbrush grows thick and scratchy, a wild tangle of tribal heartwoods and electrofuzz bromeliads.  A projector spreads a forest of pixelated 8-bit grass and geometric geology on a screen behind the performers. But the performers - where are they? As our night vision kicks in, we see one, two - percussionists at play. And another - a glimmering saxophone slithers into sight. From the darkness of upstage, more crouching band members materialize, hunched in motionless concentration over their laptops like lynxes stalking prey. We count at least five different breeds of laptop, and spy a couple of multi-instrumentalist chameleons - a rare breed! 

Just when we satisfied that we have correctly identified all seven of them in their unnatural habitat and are tiring of this game, the safari ends, and the band all vanish until the next feeding time. Hey, that was fun, wasn't it? Thanks to Teeth Mountain, now we really have no reasons to go to Singapore.

Live photos by: Ashley Gordon