The fact that it was recently paired with Damien Rice’s ‘O’ on Amazon says it all really. Teitur’s ‘Poetry and Aeroplanes’ is the kind of gauzy melancholia and dimly lit exposition of the heart that made Rice’s record so surprisingly assertive and unputdownable, the difference this time round is that whearas Rice refused to compromise his intense and weary sadness with flights of adult-oriented joy and frivolous production values, Teitur drifts into occasional mediocrity with scores and arrangements not unlike those found on any Sting or Paul Simon album (‘Ten Summoners Tales’, ‘Still Crazy After All These Years’). But as I said, it’s just occasional and doesn’t detract from the overall craft of his rather special talent.
Teitur, 25, grew up in Denmark’s Faroe Islands, a small group of islands between Iceland and Scotland with early influences spanning everything from R.E.M to Miles Davis, which might explain his varied mismatch of tastes. Unlike Britain, the remainder of Europe does not draw a clear line of cool between folks like Rice and your mighty broker-rock icons like Sting. And this is perhaps what makes Teitur such a charming and unpretentious alternative to the self-conscious bedwetting of the current British indie-scene. Tracks like ‘You’re The Ocean’ crash and sparkle with a Jeff Buckley-esque sass and vigour and modest troubadour specialities like ‘I Was Just Thinking’, ‘Josephine’, ‘Edges’ and ‘Let’s Go Dancing’ would hold their own amongst anything put out by Nick Drake, Tim Buckley, Kathryn Williams or Damien Rice, with lyrics just surreal, challenging and amusing enough to lift them clear from your average run of the mill folk-cowboy; more Beth Orton than Joan Armatrading, more Thom Yorke than David Grey.
Currently on tour with Rufus Wainright, it’s entirely possible we’ll be hearing a little more of Teitur in the future.