Kamal Singh Launches New Electronica Project Gold Tooth

Gold Tooth. Photo: courtesy of the artist

If you know how guitarist-vocalist Kamal Singh started toying around with a laptop mic and audio software for his lo-fi rock project Hoirong in 2013, it’s no surprise to hear his new project, electronica/lo-fi duo Gold Tooth, was recorded without a mic or a mixer over one weekend. Even less surprising is that Gold Tooth’s debut album, Occult Aether Physics, was recorded just last week when Singh and his old friend, Bengaluru-based producer Kapil Das, met after a gap of three to four years. Says Singh, “For five years or so, we’ve been jamming together, so it was just this particular weekend we decided to make an album and did it in two days.”

With Singh providing noisy guitars and often nonsense vocals in Japanese [“Gangster Pose,” “Embrace The Moon”], Chinese and Persian, Das handles production duties with his synthesizer/sequencer called Monomachine. The result is 10 tracks of lo-fi synth flavored electronic music that Das himself calls atonal and “like a parody.” Das, who first met Singh through his post-rock band Lounge Piranha’s digeridoo player Pervez Rajan in 2007 and began hanging out with the band, says there are however influences of krautrock bands such as Can and American producer Morton Subotnick. Das adds, “I was listening to it and just cringing and my girlfriend said to turn it down. But it’s made in complete improvisational spirit. We didn’t think more than that. Most of the songs are actually the same length as we made them.”

Singh says he took on the project as pure fun and a chance to play in an electronic music setup. Adds the guitarist, “It was great to not have boundaries and see how his [Das] brain works.” Considering it’s in the electronic space and produced by Das, Singh compares it to Hoirong and jokes, “This sounds much better, actually. This sounds tolerable.” While Singh adds a guitar lead to “Rain Check, Get That Trolley And Half Spin Your Anklets” over some heavy bass, Gold Tooth goes parody rap on “Gangster Pose” and a little dark industrial on “Your Fingers are Soft, Mine are Jaded.”

While Das has just relocated to Bengaluru from Delhi, Singh does say they would consider taking Gold Tooth live if enough people are interested in the music, but there’s no concrete plan yet. Says Singh, “We’re both very happy about it [the album]. We’re amused at how this has turned out.” While the guitarist says there are plans to release a music video for “Rain Check”¦,” Das adds they would definitely work on more material. Says Das, “We’ll make an album every day and I’m not even joking.”

Listen to Gold Tooth here