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Hen's Teeth

by Mira Martin-Gray

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Weird Ear Records
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emma
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Garrett E.
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fred
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Brett Nelson
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Owen Kurtz
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Tatti Persson
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ngitterman
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Martin Arnold
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DARYL WORTHINGTON
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1.
Magical Thinking 03:50
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Magical Thinking we don’t believe in horoscopes tarot is ok I guess mostly cuz your aunt does it and she came out to us but cooking is magic it’s transmutation and we’re alchemists breaking our oaths of secrecy sharing our elixir with family we still believe in ritual worship, rites and sacraments even if our practice can feel inadequate but cooking is sacred it’s supplication and we’re priestesses weaving a holy tapestry eating of the apple emphatically or we’re witches pinching our herbs into a cauldron cursing our friends with tupperware making yeast our familiar unbinding kitchen twine
2.
Pea Pods 06:59
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Pea Pods some mistakes are seasonal like chewing on inedible pea pods we didn’t think to shuck them too eager— too eager for the treat sometimes thoughts are reasonable they’re usually inelegant seesaws I shouldn’t stand in judgment too eager— too eager for a seat I just can’t seem to wait my turn this dust of which we’re made this urn that’s filled up to the lip and still can’t seem to drip the water, the earth, the sky the cycle of day and night the sun doesn’t make mistakes but I am the daughter
3.
Watching Star Trek 04:16
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Watching Star Trek sitting on the bed watching star trek being with each other being here for one another just letting go not troubling the new snow laying on the bed after having sex wearing as a cover the perfume of one another just letting go not troubling the new snow sleeping in the bed resting twisted necks being with each other being here for one another just letting go not troubling the new snow
4.
Body Language 03:09
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Body Language soft hands swollen glands more than understand body language body language body, our spiritual baggage body language bad knees flat feet this heat tastes so sweet body language body language body, our spiritual baggage body language
5.
5-CD Changer 03:23
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5-CD Changer I walked over to Diane's house to pick up a CD player she was getting rid of so you could listen to your collection after your parents' old one broke I didn't know she lived so close by downsizing, she said it was much bigger than I expected I had brought a knapsack but it wasn’t even close a 5-CD changer! I was happy to carry it home the 4 or 5 blocks good exercise, and I wanted you to have it normally this is the kind of this you might do for me bear a literal burden, like offering to carry my bag it was so nice to talk to Diane having not seen many friends in almost a year she and I chatted about our friends performing in the feminist hologram concert that night we went for a walk after dinner and just as we were almost home a snowflake fell on your eyelash
6.
Play each note as if it will help 10:01
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7.
Hen's Teeth 10:09
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about

Mira Martin-Gray’s albums from a few years back, released under the bandonym “Tendencyitis,” were the sounds of a musician re-learning their craft from the ground up. After proving adept at no-input mixer, more recent efforts (perhaps, uncoincidentally, under her own name) still have that questing quality but are coming from a more confident place, sharing more, and moving into gentler new sound-worlds without refuting any of the sonic debris accumulated along the way.

Hen’s Teeth explores dichotomies of “songs” and “sounds,” bridging an artificial divide by someone who wants to make — and hear — both. The two sides here co-exist gracefully, both exploring where “I” ends and “you” begins, and where “the world” ends and “self” begins (and does it in an easier-to-digest manner than Buber). This is music that trades in small domestic sounds and small domestic moments — but more than being merely observational they are political (like Pauline Oliveros is political) and sexy (like Vulcans touching fingers is sexy).

The boundaries between “song,” “composition” and “improvisation” are also collapsed through the use of Mira’s open scores — text-based works that provide structure with room for interpretation rather than predictable repeatability. The two longer pieces on Side B are explicitly performances of two text scores — keen observers might have witnessed “Hen’s Teeth” in a previous incarnation when it was known as “I know It’s Just Intonation (but I like it)” — but Side A’s tunes bear the imprint of the text scores as well. “Pea Pods,” for example, grew from a score instructing the player to “chew on something inedible.” Meanwhile tracks like “5-CD Changer” convey their narratives with some help from traditional notation and chord structures.

Responding to pandemic-era constraints, this album centers the experience of isolation. But with all-star collaborators like Germaine Liu, Mark Zurawinksi, Naomi McCarroll-Butler, Alex Fournier, Kurt Newman, and Robin Jennings on hand it also reaffirms the essential need for community, celebrating the joys of sharing sounds and sharing space.
- Joe Strutt


Previous press:

"In her book You’re History, Lesley Chow explores the “strange specificity” which makes great pop songs great. The anomalies and abrasions which defy logic yet somehow succeed in pop’s weird alchemy. There seems to be an admiration for those same inexplicably affecting moments of quirkiness seeping through ... her beat science and off-balance melodies toying with that off-kilter, life affirming oddness... Idiosyncrasies and limitations become sign posts for Martin-Gray to explore strange sonic avenues... a joyously vivid world of sounds."
- The Quietus

"An idiosyncratic romp... unassuming boxes of wires become interfaces with howling electronic spirits... Her machine voices are abrasive, yet tender; squicky, squirty and even erotic, like a circuit-bent 8-bit video game console having loud, unrestrained orgasms. What's especially compelling is that each one has its own eccentric character."
- The Wire

"Mira Martin-Gray creates extremely unexpected work, and her latest is as quirky as it gets. This Toronto-based original is in her own world, and for good reason – it's a place to develop wildly original ideas."
- Toneshift

"Delicately anarchic—slipping from atmospheric hush to raucous bluster without making a spectacle of it. They’ve harnessed the strengths of both seamlessness and contrast, and have somehow managed to open a void where these polar opposites exist simultaneously."
- Musicworks

credits

released May 1, 2023

Personnel

Mira Martin-Gray: voice (1-5, 7), guitar (1-6), synthesizers and electronics (2, 6, 7), midi programming (2, 3, 4), keyboard (2, 4), drums and percussion (2, 4), piano (4), bass guitar (4)
Alex Fournier: double bass (1, 3)
Robin Jennings: harmonica (6)
Germaine Liu: percussion (1, 3), alto recorder and irish whistle (6), balloon (7)
Naomi McCarroll-Butler: bass clarinet, flute, homemade flutes (4, 5, 7)
Kurt Newman: electric guitar (1)
Mark Zurawinksi: drums and percussion (1, 3, 6, 7)


All compositions © Mira Martin-Gray 2023 (SOCAN)
Written and recorded 2019 - 2022 in Toronto
Recorded by Mira Martin-Gray, Mark Zurawinski, and Robin Jennings in their homes, and Tom Upjohn at Array Space and Artscape Daniels Launchpad
Produced, mixed and mastered by Mira Martin-Gray
Additional mixing by Tom Upjohn

Cover art by Michael DeForge
Liner notes by Joe Strutt

Mira Martin-Gray gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts

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Rat-drifting Toronto, Ontario

Rat-drifting music searches for specificity, celebrates detail. It experiments with radical particularity and wonders about the possibilities and potentials of those experiments. If the music drifts, it does so in the hopes that the listener drifts with it—her/his imagination experimenting with the possibilities of the music as well, as they find their own route through their own experience. ... more

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