Album Notes

The Invisible Cities is pleased to announce the release of its second album, Houses Shine Like Teeth, available April 15, 2009. The band’s first album, Watertown, came out in 2004 and was praised on many best-of-the-year lists. With a sound that the West Coast Performer calls “despicably infectious,” The Invisible Cities returns with an album of wiry guitars and charming melodies.


The album’s 14 tracks of rough-around-the-edges rock and dreamy boy/girl harmonies range from the quietly sublime to the confidently noisy. The Cities have drawn upon experimental elements including electronics, noise, and detuned guitars, and mixed them with their more familiar pop elements to create a record where the songs cover wide ground and yet create a satisfying whole.

The Invisible Cities began in 2001 in San Francisco when Han Wang (guitars, vocals) met Sadie Contini (guitars, vocals) on craigslist.org. The duo then started collaborating with band members in San Francisco and in New York, including Han's brother Gary Wang (bass, arrangements) and Tim Bulkley (drums). With the addition of singer-songwriter Goh Nakamura on guitar, the band recorded basic tracks for Houses Shine Like Teeth at New Improved Recording in Oakland, CA and Tiny Telephone in San Francisco.

The remote collaboration between San Francisco and New York required the band to work in a new way, and as a result much of the recording took place in the homes of the various band members, building upon and editing each other's work like a musical version of exquisite corpse.