TEDDY HORSE
TEDDY HORSE “Sea Taverns”
By Dr. Abner Mality
Here is something against the grain of all modern music, seeming to come from a time and place long gone. “Haunted folk” is as good a term as any for it and although punk and metal musicians have had a hand in its creation, there is very little electric instrumentation on the album. It is as primitive and stripped down as music can be and is covered in a thick blanket of fog.
It tells a story of a haunted tavern where the ghosts of dead sailors congregate to sip phantom ale and speak of watery things. There is much talk of eels and octopi and the presiding tone is one of weariness. The voice of TEDDY HORSE is the glue that binds it together. He tells the tales with a spectral, fuzzy groan, a deep voice like the tired ghost of a long dead sea captain. It’s both sad and spooky and one can almost envision the tavern covered in sea moss and coral, with dead men singing mournfully at the tables and bar. It’s a mood that couldn’t be conjured up by any electric band.
The prevailing problem with “Sea Taverns” is that there is a bit too much of it. At 14 songs, the work is rather bloated and 2 to 4 songs could have been snipped off at little loss. The songs are mostly short and easily digestible, if you have a stomach for ghost shanties, and are uniformly simple, with mostly acoustic guitar and TEDDY’s mutters. I wonder if perhaps a little bit of sorrowful flute or sad piano judiciously applied might have added a bit of color.
It’s a most peculiar work with a very specific audience in mind, but is truly uncanny with the lonesome feeling it creates, something you are unlikely to hear elsewhere.