Tei Shi

    ARTISTS    RELEASES    TOUR    SHOP
  •        

ARTS & CRAFTS PUBLISHING
ARTS & CRAFTS MEXICO

  [email protected]







Tei Shi        

  • LATEST
  • MUSIC
  • TOUR DATES
  • BIOGRAPHY
  • PRESS
LOADING
Loading
  • Tei Shi - Crawl Space

    View more
  • Tei Shi - How Far

    View Video
  • Tei Shi - Verde

    View more

Crawl Space

Buy Crawl Space

Stream Crawl Space

Friday March 31st, 2017
DD | LP


BUY / STREAM



  •           1.   Way To Record
  •           2.   Keep Running
  •           3.   Creep
  •           4.   Baby
  •           5.   How Far
  •           6.   Bad Singer
  •           7.   Say You Do
  •           8.   Bad Girl
  •           9.   Justify
  •           10.   Lift Me
  •           11.   Como Si
  •           12.   Crawl
  •           13.   Year 3K
  •           14.   Your World
  •           15.   Sleepy


Verde

Buy Verde

Stream Verde

Tuesday April 14th, 2015
DD





  •           1.   Can't Be Sure
  •           2.   Bassically
  •           3.   See Me
  •           4.   Go Slow
  •           5.   Get It



October 24th, 2017
Denver, CO
Larimer Lounge
 
October 21st, 2017
San Diego, CA
Soda Bar
 
October 20th, 2017
Los Angeles, CA
Echoplex
 
October 18th, 2017
Santa Barbara, CA
Club Soho
 
October 17th, 2017
San Francisco, CA
Rickshaw
 
October 15th, 2017
Portland, OR
Holocene
 
October 14th, 2017
Seattle, WA
Barboza
 
October 12th, 2017
Vancouver, BC
Biltmore Cabaret
 
October 11th, 2017
Victoria, BC
Sugar
 
October 7th, 2017
Calgary, AB
Commonwealth
 
October 6th, 2017
Edmonton, AB
The Needle
 
October 5th, 2017
Saskatoon, SK
Amigo's
 
October 4th, 2017
Winnipeg, MB
The Park Theatre
 
October 3rd, 2017
Minneapolis, MN
7th Street Entry
 
September 30th, 2017
Chicago, IL
Schubas Tavern
 
September 29th, 2017
Detroit, MI
El Club
 
September 28th, 2017
Toronto, ON
The Mod Club
 
September 27th, 2017
Montreal, QC
Cafe Campus
 
September 26th, 2017
Ottawa, ON
Mavericks Bar
 
September 24th, 2017
Pittsburgh, PA
Cattivo
 
September 22nd, 2017
Philadelphia, PA
The Fillmore
 
September 20th, 2017
Brooklyn, NY
Music Hall Of Williamsburg
 
September 19th, 2017
Allston, MA
Great Scott
 
September 17th, 2017
Columbus, OH
Rumba Cafe
 
September 16th, 2017
St. Louis, MO
Fubar
 
September 14th, 2017
Austin, TX
Stubbs
 
September 13th, 2017
Houston, TX
White Oak Music Hall
 
September 12th, 2017
Dallas, TX
Club Dada
 
September 10th, 2017
Atlanta, AL
Aisle 5
 
September 9th, 2017
Raleigh, NC
Hopscotch Music Festival
 
September 8th, 2017
Washington, DC
U Street Music Hall
 
June 3rd, 2017
Toronto, ON
Field Trip Music & Arts Festival
 
March 17th, 2017
Vancouver, BC
Vogue Theatre
 
April 24th, 2016
Indio, CA
Coachella Festival
 
April 21st, 2016
Los Angeles, CA
Shrine Auditorium
 
April 20th, 2016
Oakland, CA
Fox Theatre
 
April 17th, 2016
Indio, CA
Coachella Festival
 
October 2nd, 2015
Hollywood, CA
The Roxy
 
September 30th, 2015
Los Angeles, CA
Wiltern Theatre
 
September 29th, 2015
San Diego, CA
The Observatory North Park
 
September 28th, 2015
San Francisco, CA
The Fillmore
 
September 25th, 2015
Englewood, CO
Gothic Theatre
 
September 23rd, 2015
Minneapolis, MN
Varsity Theater
 
September 22nd, 2015
Chicago, IL
Park West
 
September 20th, 2015
Brooklyn, NY
Music Hall Of Williamsburg
 
September 19th, 2015
Washington, DC
9:30 Club
 
September 18th, 2015
Philadelphia, PA
Union Transfer
 
September 16th, 2015
New York, NY
Terminal 5
 
September 14th, 2015
Toronto, ON
Danforth Music Hall
 
August 7th, 2015
Squamish, BC
Squamish Valley Music Festival
 
June 12th, 2015
Toronto, ON
Bestival Toronto
 
June 7th, 2015
Manchester, UK
Parklife Festival
 
June 6th, 2015
London, UK
Field Day Festival
 
June 5th, 2015
London, UK
Shacklewell Arms
 
June 3rd, 2015
London, UK
o2 Brixton Academy
 
June 2nd, 2015
Bournemouth , UK
o2 Academy
 
May 31st, 2015
Berlin, Denmark
Berlin Festival
 
May 21st, 2015
London, UK
Red Gallery
 
May 19th, 2015
Paris, France
Le Pop Up du Label
 
May 17th, 2015
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Paradiso
 
May 15th, 2015
Brussels, Belgium
Beursschouwburg
 
May 14th, 2015
Brighton, UK
Komedia
 
May 11th, 2015
Los Angeles, CA
School Night - Bardot
 
May 9th, 2015
Los Angeles, CA
Lyric Theatre
 
May 8th, 2015
San Francisco, CA
Popscene
 
May 2nd, 2015
Montreal, QC
Theatre Fairmont
 
May 1st, 2015
Boston, MA
MIT
 
April 30th, 2015
Philadelphia, PA
Milkboy
 
April 29th, 2015
Washington, DC
DC9
 
April 29th, 2015
New York, NY
Bowery Ballroom
 
April 27th, 2015
Allston, MA
Great Scott
 
March 21st, 2015
Austin, TX
Hype Hotel
 
March 20th, 2015
Austin, TX
W Hotel
 
March 19th, 2015
Austin, TX
Red Eyed Fly
 
March 19th, 2015
Austin, TX
Stubbs BBQ
 
March 18th, 2015
Austin, TX
Holy Mountain
 
March 18th, 2015
Austin, TX
Bar 96
 
March 16th, 2015
Austin, TX
The Mohawk
 
Crawl Space documents Tei Shi's transformation from the cautious and curious new kid on the block to a confident, self-possessed and buzz worthy artist. Written and recorded over a year and a half, the album traces a much wider arc, from Tei Shi's earliest musical explorations to this, her first long player. Growth is never easy, though, and if the title makes the process sound difficult, even claustrophobic, that's because it was. In fact, there is a palpable physicality surrounding this record, and it reveals itself everywhere: from the album's song titles (Keep Running, Lift Me), to its rhythms, to its astonishing cover art. Constant motion is a fact of life. A real, physical crawlspace fits only one person and demands that person move forward, out and through it. Tei Shi's debut evokes that feeling and the experience of centering oneself, changing focus.

Born Valerie Teicher, Tei Shi remembers composing songs as early as eight years old - sometimes in a diary, other times recording herself on tapes (some of which are featured on the album) - setting down phrases or melodies as they came to her. Born in Buenos Aires and growing up between (Bogota,) Colombia and (Vancouver,) Canada, she began dreaming of herself as a singer, a performer and an artist.  Perhaps symbolic of this newfound determination, around the same time, she struggled with an extreme fear of the night and entered a period of insomnia. To combat this new fear of the dark and unknown she forced herself to hide inside her family home's crawlspace for a minute each night, in order to confront her fear. This crawl space became a sort of symbol for her at this formative phase of her life.

Teicher treated her musical aspirations the same way for some time - comforting and important, but still secret, still too personal to really show the world. "For the first year or two, I was testing the waters," she says.  "I wanted to be in the background a bit, to put the music out there and have it be more of an abstract thing. All of the earlier artwork was a little more ethereal, too; it didn't have me on it." Even as she began to study and release music, this instinct to hide kept a hold on her.

With each new song and performance, however, successes and encouragement began to pile up and while at the beginning Tei Shi flourished in a collaborative and peer-based environment she realized over time she needed to to reclaim her own singular creative space.  "I started to realize I didn't have a clear sense of myself as an artist independent from the people I was surrounded by," she says. Ultimately it took the end of a relationship that had begun around the inception of herself as Tei Shi to spearhead her own musical development.  "That relationship was not only a huge part of my life, it was an integral part of the identity I had formed around Tei Shi," she explains. "It had spanned my whole experience as Tei Shi and had been very interwoven with it." That breakup came to a head partway through recording the songs that would come to make up Crawl Space, and while the relationship is deeply embedded into the album, the songs explore something less like heartbreak, something closer to the deconstruction of identity. Throughout every song, Tei Shi brings a remarkable clarity to the very act of vulnerability, to exposing oneself and inviting others in. Album opener and lead single "Keep Running" is as telling a song as any, balancing futuristic, deconstructed pop with an expert dash of something new wave, almost italo-disco.  Tei Shi's voice cuts through with a sweet melody and a warning to "keep running, keep running for me." It is as much a command as an act of mercy, and the urgency is met with the finality of a refrain that "time is up." "How Far", a song Tei She describes as among her most personal and fulfilling, is minimal but bent on pushing maximal limits. As Tei Shi's soprano reaches dizzying heights, "How Far" explores what we to do when a relationship becomes destructive, when you're trying to change one another into something the other person simply can't be. Here, Tei Shi wonders aloud how much can one person or even one bond between two people take before it falls apart, as she asserts that "If it pleases you to see me struggling, I will...If it pleases you to see me sorry, I'm not."  "Say You Do" follows immediately and doubles down. Tei Shi's voice  is crystal clear and unaffected here, her self-awareness front and center.  

"Earlier in my career, I hid because I wanted first and foremost to be seen as a creative person making music.  I thought that if I presented myself as a singer people wouldn't get that I write, that I produce too. "People have this idea that you can only check some of the proverbial boxes as a creative woman, that you can't be attractive and sexual and a great singer and a solid performer and a great writer and be in control of your creative space, as if some of those are mutually exclusive for a human woman. My ambition is to represent all of those without having to sacrifice one for the other.

Like the album's themes, its visual concepts reflect Tei Shi's personal sea changes. Visual nods to motifs like Flashdance were never intentional, but make sense in hindsight. "I wanted something more raw, feminine and sexy but still real," says Tei Shi. She counts artists like Fiona Apple, Debbie Harry, and PJ Harvey among her inspirations - women who sexualized themselves in a way that wasn't contrived but instead elevated each's independence and creative authority. "For this record, I definitely realized I want to be identifiable as me, my personality and my music.  You want that connection, you want people to get who you are, so you have to show them." Similarly, Crawl Space would be incomplete without the gorgeous "Como Si", a nod to Tei Shi's childhood in Colombia and her bilingual upbringing. Originally written as a poem before she set it to a melody, it is the first song Tei Shi has ever released in Spanish.  "I really wanted to do something in Spanish because it's such a big part of my identity. I love the language and it's a way of preserving this part of myself.

Crawl Space traces the arc of major changes across every facet of Tei Shi's life, and embodies the sound of an artist creating and commanding her own space.  And while the process can be claustrophobic, Tei Shi proves that it can also be liberating, even exhilarating.

DOWNLOAD PDF BIOGRAPHY



JJ Medina


SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MAILING LIST



    ARTISTS    RELEASES    TOUR    SHOP
  •        

ARTS & CRAFTS PUBLISHING
ARTS & CRAFTS MEXICO
FIELD TRIP
CAREERS

  [email protected]

     

© 2022 Arts & Crafts Productions Inc.