Album 11, Unrest "Prefect Teeth"
Not sure how I missed this one. This suggestion comes from Professor History Genius, Kevin Kruse (Sorry, Scudder, there can be only one. I don't make the History Professor Highlander rules.) Kruse, who took a break from his usual routine of dismantling the idiotic arguments of professional trolls like Dinesh D'Souza with detailed rundowns of actual history, posted a tweet about music. I am always up for some peak strumming and the 90s is underrepresented so far in this journey of mine.
Unrest
Perfect Teeth
1993
Again, how did I miss this album, or indeed, this band? Like, if you were designing the perfect album to appeal to Phil, which, I think we have already established, would be economically unwise, you couldn't get much more on point than Perfect Teeth. Lo-fi jangle pop with maximal strumming, slightly off kilter harmonies, released on 4AD records, no song on the album called Perfect Teeth, multiple lead singers, a track of just non-sensical noise? I seriously feel like there is a "missed connection" addressed at me in some 90s fanzine. "You: slightly lost looking boy in search of your next musical crush. Us: band on our way to rock Club DV8. Let's go!" I AM SO SORRY I MISSED YOU! To be fair, 1993 would have meant a time in my life when Kath and I were so poor that Friday night date night often consisted of grocery shopping and playing with the cat toys on the top shelf so buying music was pretty low on the priority list and Napster did not yet exist.
But back to the music. Let me get my one complaint out first. I hope Unrest eventually learned how to end a song. Other than that, I love this album. It captures that wonderful early 90s aesthetic of "hey, let's form a band" and unlike the 80s version of "hey, let's form a band" where all you needed was a Casio and big hair, in the 90s you actually had to learn some guitar chords. Not many, but some. And if you could play the ones you did know very quickly, all the better.
The album has some interesting patterns. Consider that it starts with a droning dirge (Angel, I'll Walk You Home) and ends with a droning dirge (Stylized Ampersand.) There are some obviously intentional musical choices being made in these songs too. The way the vocals and harmonies are layered imperfectly on each other, resulting in lyrics being song across beats. Well, that would have driven my first choral director insane ("You sound like a bunch of snakes!" he'd opine when we ended a line ending with "S" less than in unison.) But it works here. The 90s were all about experimenting with the formats of pop music and destroying the manufactured forms that were dominating the late 80s, early 90s. (Hi there, Hair Metal!) And Unrest is definitely attacking the structures of what music could be.
And then the middle is almost entirely up tempo, high velocity strumming rockers, very different than the opening and closing tracks. Cath Carroll starts off this streak of songs and gives you a good idea what we are in for: relentless, in your face, lo-fi indie rock. I feel like I have heard this from a hundred different bands but I can only recall Idaho as being reminiscent of Unrest. Perhaps this was less ubiquitous in the early 90s than I remember? More likely the memory worms have begun their work in my noggin. No matter because it is well represented here in tracks like Light Command, Six Layer Cake (a drink on me to whomever can tell me what this song means), and even in the middle of the slower track Soon It's Going to Rain.
This will all get shuffled into my amalgamated, melange of a music library and Unrest will be popping up for years to come. But no song probably as much as the one that got us here to begin with: Make Out Club. I love this song and it really encompasses all I have been trying to say about this band. And how can I not include a VHS recording of the song's video from MTV's 120 Minutes? If you listen carefully, you can even hear the lyric that gives the album its name. Never change, early 90s indie rock.
Again, how did I miss this album, or indeed, this band? Like, if you were designing the perfect album to appeal to Phil, which, I think we have already established, would be economically unwise, you couldn't get much more on point than Perfect Teeth. Lo-fi jangle pop with maximal strumming, slightly off kilter harmonies, released on 4AD records, no song on the album called Perfect Teeth, multiple lead singers, a track of just non-sensical noise? I seriously feel like there is a "missed connection" addressed at me in some 90s fanzine. "You: slightly lost looking boy in search of your next musical crush. Us: band on our way to rock Club DV8. Let's go!" I AM SO SORRY I MISSED YOU! To be fair, 1993 would have meant a time in my life when Kath and I were so poor that Friday night date night often consisted of grocery shopping and playing with the cat toys on the top shelf so buying music was pretty low on the priority list and Napster did not yet exist.
But back to the music. Let me get my one complaint out first. I hope Unrest eventually learned how to end a song. Other than that, I love this album. It captures that wonderful early 90s aesthetic of "hey, let's form a band" and unlike the 80s version of "hey, let's form a band" where all you needed was a Casio and big hair, in the 90s you actually had to learn some guitar chords. Not many, but some. And if you could play the ones you did know very quickly, all the better.
The album has some interesting patterns. Consider that it starts with a droning dirge (Angel, I'll Walk You Home) and ends with a droning dirge (Stylized Ampersand.) There are some obviously intentional musical choices being made in these songs too. The way the vocals and harmonies are layered imperfectly on each other, resulting in lyrics being song across beats. Well, that would have driven my first choral director insane ("You sound like a bunch of snakes!" he'd opine when we ended a line ending with "S" less than in unison.) But it works here. The 90s were all about experimenting with the formats of pop music and destroying the manufactured forms that were dominating the late 80s, early 90s. (Hi there, Hair Metal!) And Unrest is definitely attacking the structures of what music could be.
And then the middle is almost entirely up tempo, high velocity strumming rockers, very different than the opening and closing tracks. Cath Carroll starts off this streak of songs and gives you a good idea what we are in for: relentless, in your face, lo-fi indie rock. I feel like I have heard this from a hundred different bands but I can only recall Idaho as being reminiscent of Unrest. Perhaps this was less ubiquitous in the early 90s than I remember? More likely the memory worms have begun their work in my noggin. No matter because it is well represented here in tracks like Light Command, Six Layer Cake (a drink on me to whomever can tell me what this song means), and even in the middle of the slower track Soon It's Going to Rain.
This will all get shuffled into my amalgamated, melange of a music library and Unrest will be popping up for years to come. But no song probably as much as the one that got us here to begin with: Make Out Club. I love this song and it really encompasses all I have been trying to say about this band. And how can I not include a VHS recording of the song's video from MTV's 120 Minutes? If you listen carefully, you can even hear the lyric that gives the album its name. Never change, early 90s indie rock.
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