Sink Ya Teeth's excellent debut shows just what a freestanding thing post-punk has become, intersecting but standing apart from rock and club music. Bass guitar leads along with stark vocals that both undercut and emphasize the funk. These are the primary elements of this UK duo, as with many of their foremothers. The tracks are electronic but aren't fully digitized workstation creations. They're crafted as songs but are dispassionate in a way that short-circuits notions of rock. An aura of skepticism hangs over the sound but not the final effect. This is cold wave that works up a sweat, expansive in technique and claustrophobic in tone. We recognize the motifs, and they still possess the capacity to disorient.
Post-punk was a far cloudier concept in the 1970s than it is now. Formerly, the phrase was applied to just about any new music that wasn't foregrounding guitar riffs or speed. The early years of this century solidified notions of caustic, danceable DIY. Starting in 2000, the Disco not Disco compilation series discerned an outline that hadn't quite been articulated. It showed that four-on-the-floor studio productions inspired many schools, from the composer Arthur Russell's Dinosaur L, to remixers of pop songs by the Police, to rock dinosaurs like Steve Miller keeping up with trends. The third volume came out in 2008, and while there were more old tracks to juxtapose, it wasn't really necessary. By that point, electro-clash, dance punk and the adjective "angular" had played out, and ESG was no longer an obscure reference.
The two musicians who make up Sink Ya Teeth were already active around that time. Gemma Cullingford was in one of those angular aughts groups, KaitO. Their album Band Red was a cut above, but never caught on. Maria Uzor was working on bedsit songwriting with bluesy sorrow. This project started as a side gig to a full band. As can be the case with casual collaborations, working offhand elevated both their strengths.
There's a bunch of yin yang propelling the material. The synth and drums tracks sit squarely on the digital grid, allowing Cullingford's bass and Uzor's vocal to slide around the pocket. For "If You See Me" this creates a woozy funk that captures the carsick nausea of lyrics. Uzor delivers the lines "I feel a little depressed / a little melancholy at best" with the dry authority of Grace Jones, vulnerability implied but never acknowledged. Years of DIY recording have honed their skills so that a track like "Glass" has the full gloss of Giorgio Morodor rippling through the night. "Control" launches a Joy Division lyric over Chicago House drum programming, mashing worlds that would eventually come together, but not like this, strictly pre-rave in style.
The narrative of "Friends" laments investing time with a companion that's never going to be close. Chopped up ringtones echo contemporary distraction, as Uzor restrains herself from unlocking her phone, exerting politeness that isn't worth the effort. Epic alienation is scaled down to the everyday. “She is not my friend, but she pretends to be” is both the hook and the punchline. The album is full of both.
Sink Ya Teeth look to be about the same age as the oldest influences they distill, fitting together goth gloom and electro bleeps far more naturally than happened in the Thatcher years, while inhabiting the awkwardness that was essential to it. They curate both the 1980 and the 2005 iterations of alienation. There's a special charm for the culture around one's birth year, the music you share an infancy with. Familiar as aftermath, the sounds sit at the edge of memory, providing a different intoxication than the vivid hits of adolescence. It’s a specific perspective that often has the clearest view of a movement. This scrappy album finds yet another future for old futurism.
