New York – On Wednesday night, TEEN brought their A-game to Baby’s All Right. Plenty of Brooklyn bands produce a similar style of synth pop, but TEEN’s live performance sets them apart and leagues ahead of the others. However, you wouldn’t know it looking at them. No offense intended, but with a name like TEEN you would think the band was a bunch of haircuts with decent voices, baby faces and great PR, e.g. Five Seconds of Summer or Dream Street. Although there is something distinctly 90s about their sound, TEEN is more than their name.
The Brooklyn indie band is the current project of Here We Go Magic’s ex-keyboardist Kristina “Teeny” Lieberson. Along with her sisters Katherine (drums) and Lizzie (keyboard) as well as Boshra AlSaadi (bass), she formed the group in 2010. Since then, they have written the EPs Little Doods (2011) and Carolina (2013) as well as their debut full length In Limbo (2012). Most recently the band released their second full length The Way and Color (Carpark, 2014). If their record doesn’t convince you to listen to their special brand of psych-pop their live version will.
Few bands are better live than they are recorded, mastered and played through a stereo. The process of replicating a sound that has been pored over in studio into a live performance isn’t exactly a Herculean task, but with the amount of post-production possible in the modern age it can be a challenge. TEEN has the rare talent of excelling live, despite the amount of instruments and musical elements in their performance.
With Renata Zeiguer’s Cantina opening, the bar was set unusually high. For an opening act, the little band brought an unexpected amount of energy and talent to the stage. TEEN followed up with a surprising show. Brooklyn has its share of indie-informed dream pop, but TEEN’s added hints of R&B and perfectly formed harmonies make their set a welcome change to the synth-driven quartets that populate the borough’s venues.
It was a dynamic performance. Before launching into “Rose 4 U,” Teeny looked down at a long set list and turning to AlSaadi said, “We could just plow through it.” They did just that. Teeny held the mic with one hand and left the other rhythmically into the air, punctuating her vocals in Lana del Rey fashion. She bobbed around center stage in a quilted dragon jacket while AlSaadi and the other Lieberson sisters jammed along. They ran through a selection of songs from The Way and Color and In Limbo, the highlights being “Not for Long,” “Tied Up, Tied Down” and “Better.”
The majority of their songs included long sprawling instrumental breaks where the Liebersons and AlSaadi layered synthesizers atop electronics and running bass lines with precision and expertise. These moments really made the show. The strengths of each band member came through, especially AlSaadi. There is just something inherently impressive about someone plucking away at a fretless bass as if it’s second nature. Another noteworthy was the band’s trumpeter, who would join the band on stage for the odd song. His blaring additions were well-integrated into the wash of vocal harmonies and trippy synth and added another element to TEEN’s sound that other bands lacked. Songs like “All the Same” with its wailing trumpet break and “Sticky” with its Two Door Cinema Club-esque synth, proved that TEEN has the chops and musical know-how to meld everything together. It’s difficult to put that much sound in the same space and have it all coexist. It is that command of their sound that made Wednesday night’s show most memorable.
See for yourself; their U.S. tour continues through October 19.
Zoe Marquedant
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