GUM TAKES TOOTH (UK) / ANNE PEDERSDOTTER (AT) Rhiz - Bar Modern, 24 Feb 24

As Gum Takes Tooth, the duo of Thomas Fug and Jussi Brightmore plot an adventurous, idiosyncratic and willfully unpredictable trajectory. Continuously exploring and mutating with an ever more nuanced approach while maintaining a staunch commitment to non-conformity, the band formed in East London in 2009 with wild gigs across the East London underground music and art scene.

Early material coalesced primitive DIY Silver Apples electronics, blast beat mayhem, and experimental noise with explosive avant-punk energy. Now marrying an unflinching beat-driven assault to a questing and transformative vision, their fourth album RECOVERY POSITION (2023) represents a clean slate for Gum Takes Tooth at a time when this ever shifting and morphing entity sheds its skin once again, revealing a lean, formidable and precise new form. Recalibrating their signature enmeshing of drums and electronics they landed on a propulsive all-electronic delivery that stubbornly eschews genre constraints while maintaining the duo’s clear affinity for the rattle and rumble of bass bins under duress. Thus was birthed a unique amalgam of industrial grime aerobics, sci-fi mutant 808 protest music and hands-in-the-air rave bangers. The album documents the tumultuous years of personal and worldwide upheaval since its predecessor. Yet the duo have alchemically transcended their circumstances, channelling the personal and political into salvation. True to form, what’s emerged is their most singular and potent work to date, simultaneously their most pop-adjacent and their most extreme.

"An absolute banger. On Recovery Position their music overlays industrial, hyperpop, and techno in new ways, and in a glistening alien new skin. Thrilling and unique, Recovery Position is their most extraordinary and impressive record yet.”
- ECHOES & DUST

“An absolute bass bomb that will 100% shred any preconceptions you have about what Gum Takes Tooth are meant to be... Recovery Position is their best record by a mile. More searing interstellar brilliance from the ferocious London duo”
- THE QUIETUS

“The duo have mutated once again, shifting further away from rock templates and into more futuristic, sci-fi techno-fied realms. Cleverly balancing brutal, industrial pummeling catharsis with their strongest pop sensibility yet. Check if you dig Giant Swan.” - NORMAN RECORDS

Anne Pedersdotter (Wien)

Anne Pedersdotter drags us deep down a mind-bending vault of minimal electronics, magnetic rhythms and manipulation. The raw and obfuscating tonal ambience of A.P.’s extended experiments in repetition and processed mutations combine elements of German synth music with the pulsating flows of cosmic kraut and 90s hip-hop, as well as the twitchy and throbbing elements of early industrial. A crazy ride in electronic no-frills primitivism, trippy to the bone.