by Giliann Karon (@lethalrejection)
On YEARN IV, Teether and Kuya Neil flex the muscles they’ve diligently trained since their first two mixtapes, GLYPH (2021) and STRESSOR (2023). Abrasive guitar riffs snake through pastiches of internet rap against a backdrop of rapid gentrification in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray. As the two outsiders navigate cultural clashes, they piece together an expansive mosaic of alienation. Even after rumbles of praise from NME and Kim Gordon, they remain staples of their local underground scene.
Teether snarls through YEARN IV’s eerie opener, “SCRATCH THE FLEA POINT” before effortlessly gliding into “ZOO,” which seizes up with paranoia. The record’s first single oozes with tight rhymes. Biting lyrics about displacement and broader power dynamics construct a taut predator vs. prey dynamic. Says the duo, “It’s wild that each day, in whatever city you find yourself, there’s millions of people waking up and doing whatever they deem most important, all at once. It’s going to be chaos. We're animals running wild, acting like it all makes sense. ‘ZOO’ is a song we made one day where this idea felt extra strange.”
Anxious trap beats interlock with narratives of alienation to create a broader mirage of their experiences as players subalternate to dominant scenes and spaces. Their smattering of influences converges on each bite-sized track. The pair never lingers too long on a single concept or influence, instead gracefully cruising from thought to thought, genre to genre.