Singles Going Single #182 - Baby Tooth 7" (1993, Remora)

Here's a 45 I obtained from a dollar bin a few years ago but didn't give a spin until this week.  For shame, because I had been depriving myself of two excellent songs from this long departed NYC three-piece, who had the good fortune of releasing their single on a label run by Richard Baluyut of Versus/+ - renown.  Baby Tooth were fronted by Michal Sapir, a young chanteuse of Isreali origin.  Sapir's offbeat knack for melody meshes well with the brooding, dynamic post-punk aplomb of "Jet Lag," just as fittingly with the comparatively twee, flute-enhanced "Explosive Crescent Man."  Baby Tooth released an ep, Rare Book Room in 1994 that I really need to get my hands on...

A. Explosive Crescent Man
B. Jet Lag

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Fluffy 7" (1992, Fluffy Disc)

Dang, where has this record been my whole life, or at the very least the better half of it?  I was tipped off to Fluffy when an alum of another band I featured on here, Baby Tooth contacted me recently...and was kind enough to supply me with a copy of the record.  There's all sorts of weird, flangy maneuvers infiltrating both sides of this pitch-shifty, distortion-y shoegaze single.  The six minute "Alien" takes a decidedly lo-fi road, and lives up to it's title, a la early Swirlies.  "Baby Tooth" (the title soon became the band's rechristened moniker) inserts some wry pop sensibilities into the mix, still approximating the offbeat allure of the Swirlies, and a dollop of Black Tambourine to boot.  Love it.

A. Alien
B. Baby Tooth

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Baby Tooth - Rare Book Room (1994, Personal Favorite)

This is a somewhat belated follow-up to a Baby Tooth single I pitched your way in 2011.  At the time I noted my intentions to obtain their ep (which actually runs closer to album length).  At any rate, here it is.  Six longish salvos from a noisy and much defunct New York trio.  "Potentiometer" is a curiosity, alternating between dissonance and a faint pop hook with the former winning out in the end.  Is that guy really tuning his guitar mid-song, or are my ears deceiving me?  Rare Book Room gets all the more interesting when the boys shift into unabashed shoegazer mode, à la lo-fi contemporaries the Swirlies on "Comes and Goes," and "Slide," the latter fastening Michal Sapir's whispery vox to an oscillating wall of tremolo-laced feedback.  Me like.

01. Potentiometer
02. Mantra
03. Small Dreamy
04. Slide
05. Wish Upon an Eyelash
06. Comes and Goes

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