Mouth Tooth Pull Apart Their 'Memory Foam | Group Therapy' Double EP In Track-By-Track

All Mouth Tooth songs pay homage to cinema; they could be a soundtrack to a film. We tell stories and try to take listeners on a journey.

Group therapy

The Group Therapy EP was written in 2011. A meditation in loneliness.

Try

This song is ultimately about letting people down, and anticipating that you will continue to make the same mistakes. It might be about leading people on and having a heavy heart. The most important thing is that you Try to do better by people and be a better person. It's one of our favourite songs and one of the first ever Mouth Tooth songs. Inspired by Tom Waits. We filmed a video on Josh Delaney in the shower eating a full dinner suit, smoking a cig and drinking wine. The video is melancholic… Depressing even, but very funny. The frustration and eccentricities of lonely people. There is comedy in the darkness. That's what Mouth Tooth explores in our videos.

Gecko

...is about sacrifice. Its about complete selflessness - giving yourself away - absolving the ego. Its about love and altruism and being willing to die for someone. It's about the acceptance of mortality and seeing Death as natural. Inspired by Vashti Bunyan and Devendra Banhart and the Zen poetry of Basho.

Sugar Cane

...is about how the mind can turn on itself. It can be very destructive. It is about sabotaging one's own potential. It's about anxiety and fear. Inspired by T Rex and the poetry of Richard Brautigan.

Red Belly Roadhouse Blues

...was written like a film. It's about someone being lost on a long and lonely road. He stumbles across a diner. It is probably just some desperate hallucination. He thinks he has found salvation, but it is just his synapses firing off as he lies beside the road. The song was actually written as two separate, short songs but we decided to make one of them the outro. It was a nice idea and you can hear the change very clearly. It is born from quite a dark swell. It offers a lightness at the end. It's hopeful and warm. Like a sunrise over a cold Australian desert. Inspired by The Doors - particularly The End - the guitar pays homage to that superb song. Rhys grew up listening to The Doors, Talking Heads and sometimes, Enya; can't you hear it?

Snakes

This song is about taking people and opportunities for granted. It's about seeing people drink too much as life passes them by. The train is used as a symbol - it represents a disconnection from reality - a motion away from commitments and life. Running away. Endless trips. Being lost. Surrendering to a governing force. Not a vagabond just someone lost and soon to be alone. It also explores romantic thinking, and how one can be seduced by their own mind - the stories they tell themselves and begin to believe. It's also about love lost. Most of our songs are. The chorus is actually inspired by the film, Bottle Rocket.

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MEMORY FOAM

This record is about romantic and delusional thinking. The fleeting nature of love and life.

Memory Foam

Memory Foam is about memories of love lost. We liked the image of the memory foam holding the indentation of a body that is no longer lying on the bed. "You can't put your arms around a memory." - Johnny Thunders. It holds the form, and you remember being there together. It's about being in a relationship that is rather unbalanced, one-sided. You are completely besotted with someone, and invested in the idea of it - but you know it won't last because the other person is not fully there. It is about looking for all your happiness and meaning in someone else and how short sighted that is. Romantic thinking can be dangerous and delusional. It can lead one into false expectation and false interpretation. It ends with hope and intoxicatingly beautiful memories of times together and the nostalgia remains. The song is very simple but it is layered with images and has a lot of depth to it. Inspired by Elvis Costello, Elliott Smith, Jackson C. Frank, Tim Hardin and Karen Dalton.

Always Lonely

...inspired by Grouper. It swells and spills through the air. It is about isolation and being alone and dreaming about someone. Believing that this person is the only one for you. The video clip follows from the Memory Foam video, as Max's character hides out in 'The Last Resort' motel. Max filmed an abandoned resort in Magnetic island, and then green-screened us in. There is something creepy and unsettling about this clip. The characters are quite still and isolated. In the narrative, they are hiding out. On the lam from Johnny Law.

So Good

...inspired by Alan Vega and Scott Walker. This is the first song we have really used drums in. However they are computer generated. This song is meant to sound boozy and loose. Imagine a Crooner in a drunken stupor dreaming about his girlfriend. Written from the perspective of someone experiencing a dizzy haze of euphoria. The video is to feature two actors playing Max and Rhys. To create an absurd, distorted reality. It is a warped version of the Mouth Tooth.

Seed Inside

...was written about a friend who was feeling very depressed. She had so much going for her, so much potential but she was deeply sad and disenfranchised with life. The song is like a letter to her, an attempt to remind her of what makes her happy and how she has the answers. It is a bit syrupy but was written in 2011 when we had more folk sensibilities and has been one of those songs that just hangs around for years. It's about the importance of experiencing the light and shade in life. The balance is essential. Inspired by Karen Dalton and Kath Bloom.

Day Fade

This song is dedicated to friends who are no longer with us.

The Opal

An instrumental ending to the album. We call that song "bath music". The Opal title is a reference to the Harold Budd and Brian Eno album, The Pearl.