Bowing out at their creative peak, Perfect Teeth is the wonderful final album by American 90s indie rock greats Unrest. Having just clocked 30 years, 4AD and the band are revisiting it to present the limited, celebratory double album of Perfect Teeth + Extra Teeth; the album remastered plus a bonus album of EP tracks, singles and rarities.
Borrowing their name from a Henry Cow record, Unrest formed in 1983 at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia (just outside of Washington, D.C.). Beginning as an improv instrumental band, they were soon perfecting genre-hopping eclecticism and issuing recordings (often in cassette form) via frontman Mark Robinson's DIY label TeenBeat, as well as on notable labels such as 4AD, Caroline, and Matador.
Their last album, Perfect Teeth features the latter year classic line-up of founding members Mark Robinson and Phil Krauth plus bassist Bridget Cross (the original lead singer of Velocity Girl) and was recorded at Pachyderm Studio in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, in early 1993, mere days after Nirvana completed In Utero in the very same space. Brian Paulson, who had produced Slint’s seminal Spiderland album, was asked to record the album and he chose the rural studio setting. Simon LeBon produced; he was recently awarded the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE).
For this reissue, the album and bonus tracks have all been remastered – most from their original analogue tapes – and are sounding as great as ever. Working again with original designer Chris Bigg, he’s kept the original album cover as is (complete with Robert Mapplethorpe’s portrait of former Miaow singer/songwriter Cath Carroll) but has created an all-new back cover and inner-sleeve, as well as the Extra Teeth album, visually re-mixing the components of the original release.
