Tei Shi: On 'Crawl Space' And The Desire To Be Inspired By Light

Tei Shi composes devastatingly poetic love songs. Whispering in sexy, tobacco-stained tones, her voice stalks like a bird of prey. She suddenly owns her powerful choruses with intent; her vocal buildups are all-consuming and dominate emotions and senses upon first listen. Tei, real name Valerie Teicher, released ‘Crawl Space’ via Polydor at the end of last month and proudly unveiled an accomplished, autobiographical body of work decorated with a picture of herself on the sleeve.

Representing a strong woman who loves quickly and feels deeply, Tei Shi’s album title derives meaning from a time when Valerie was scared of the dark as a child. She would force herself to hide in the crawl space of her family home for a while each night, facing her fear. Now she’s pushing herself to reveal the things that frighten her in the adult world, with relationships and personal growth shaping her lyrical content.

“If everything is a choice in life, like they say, then I choose you,” she sings with the soft doo-wop soul of the ‘60s on Baby, her arrangements romantically illuminating the scales she explores through wide-ranging vocals.

'Crawl Space' is a brilliant album. Increasingly enjoyable upon each listen, the originality of her self-produced sound relies upon solid talent: no gimmicks, only unadulterated prowess and skill. Confidence is sexy and Tei Shi is self-assured if intriguingly shy. We found out more about her processes and plans following the album’s showcase at SXSW this year.

What gave rise to your fear of the dark? Are you fully over that fear now?

My family moved from Bogota, Colombia to Vancouver, Canada when I was eight and shortly after that I started having a really hard time at night falling asleep. I was afraid and anxious at night and it took me a long process to overcome that. I still feel it sometimes when I am home alone, or when I'm sleeping somewhere by myself, like a hotel. But I've gotten better and rationalising my way out of it.

Do you find more inspiration in darkness or light?

In darkness. But I would like to push myself to be equally inspired by light.

Is it cathartic to exorcise difficult emotions and memories through the music, or more anxiety-provoking?

It's both. Making the music, writing and recording is incredibly cathartic, but showing it to people, releasing it and pretty much everything outside of the making of the music is very anxiety-provoking.

As an artist, would you describe yourself as vulnerable?

I think I make myself very vulnerable when I am working and making music. But as a person I've had to make myself less vulnerable - I think most artists do - in order to not be so affected by external factors or influenced by outside opinion.

What was the point at which you decided the album was done?

In July of 2016, I stopped working on the album itself and decided it was finished. It took a long process to get to that point but once I did I was 100% certain that it was done. The mixing phase started after that, which I was still involved with, but there was a permanence to the music at that point. I couldn't go back and change things.

Were you involved in the treatment for the How Far video? How did the collaboration with Dreamtiger come to fruition?

Yes. I am close friends with the Dreamtiger guys, we had an ongoing dialogue for a while about what we wanted the video to look like. It eventually evolved into what it is, but there was a lot of back and forth until we got there. So the concept and the aesthetic and the story was something we were constantly communicating about and developing.

How do you feel seeing yourself marketed as an artist, understood as a musician and a creative role model, as opposed to just regular Valerie Teicher?

It is a strange experience, but it forces you to start separating your personal everyday self from the 'you' you present publicly. It is necessary and positive to do that I think. Though in a lot of ways things become more personal and delicate as well. I'm still figuring out how to feel comfortable balancing those two identities.

'Crawl Space' is out now.

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