Tei Shi at the Biltmore Cabaret, Vancouver, Oct 12 2017. Kirk Chantraine photo.
Photos–Tei Shi at the Biltmore Cabaret, Vancouver, Oct 12 2017
– photos by Kirk Chantraine
Tei Shi at the Biltmore Cabaret, Vancouver, on Thursday night. She’s on tour for her debut album Crawl Space.
Born in Buenos Aires, Tei Shi (aka Valerie Teicher) spent her childhood in Argentina and Colombia. She later lived in Vancouver and Montreal as well, and studied at Massachusetts’ Berklee College of Music. She moved to New York after graduation and launched the Tei Shi project. In 2013, she uploaded her first Tei Shi song, “M&Ms”, to music-sharing sites.
The song was one of six on the self-released Saudade EP later that year. She was also a featured vocalist on tracks by artists including Glass Animals and Shy Girls (Dan Vidmar). In the spring of 2015 she released another EP, Verde. Its lead single, “Bassically,” accumulated seven-figure streams within weeks. Tei Shi then signed with Downtown Records, which released her full-length debut, Crawl Space, in March 2017.
The New York Times recently included her in their “30 Under 30” special. Billboard named Crawl Space as one of the Top 50 Albums of 2017 So Far. The New Yorker also featured her: “The spindly compositions that Valerie Teicher records as Tei Shi are fierce in their modesty, making spare use of whispered high notes and loud screams.”
Teicher wrote and recorded Crawl Space over the course of a year-and-a-half. Tracks include “Keep Running,” “Lift Me”, and “How Far“.
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