Tei Shi

at first i was really not down with this video but i kept being drawn back to it and the more i watch it the more it seems to give a deeply sad meaning to the song

and tei shi is really charismatic in it — definitely i am a full on fan of this project now

also the production on this song is really amazing. it sounds like pretty home-made laptop production on computer speakers but if u put it on a good sound system or listen on headphones it’s actually super rich and full sounding

i hope this is the next big thing because it is very unique

it has layers and i keep finding more - GRIMES

Raised in Vancouver and Bogotá, and based in Brooklyn, Tei Shi is an artist with a silky voice and ethereal music to match. Her sound, what she likes to call her "mermaid music," is—intentionally—somewhat hard to categorize, and probably best described as a fusion of indie pop, electronica, and airy '90s R&B. Entirely on-trend, yet still enticing and distinguished.

Earlier this year, Tei Shi released her debut EP, Saudade, which included "Nevermind the End." Today, we're excited to premiere the Saint Pepsi of the song. Given the minimalist production, it's her honeyed voice that is the real star of the show as she coos and caresses her way through lyrics like "Take me away from here/Somewhere we can just disappear/I'll be your morning light/If you wanna be my ride tonight." The airy and soulful element never grows stale, though; her flexibility and range allow her to slide between registers with a strength offset by the dreamy, future-pop instrumentation. Suffice it to say that by the end of the track, you'll be completely mesmerized by the addictively soothing sound. You're welcome in advance. - Interview Magazine

Happy Monday, darlings! It's time for a new track from one of my favorite rising artists: Tei Shi, a woman with quite the background. She's Brooklyn-based but is originally from Vancouver and Bogota, Colombia. Her new EP Saudade was released last week—get it here on iTunes—and features a seamless range of influences from introspective R&B/soul to left-of-center pop. It's all brought to life by Tei Shi's voice—a magical, soothing instrument capable of conveying sensuality and isolation all at once.

Stream the gorgeously brooding video for "M&Ms" below, a rather haunting take on a relationship's end. The sweetly sung (but sad) lyric "I had a dream that you left me/I deserved it" will lodge itself in not only your brain but your heart. Enjoy! - Glamour

About eight years ago I was talking with a friend of mine about how my favorite kind of music is of the happy-sad variety. You know, the kind of song that's a little melancholic, a little nostalgic, and a lot lovelorn, but tinged with a kind of warm acceptance. Like the musician has taken all their longing and memories and wrapped them in words and melodies for us to snuggle up in that middle distance emotion with them.

For me, the happy-sad spectrum is broad and encompasses everything from The Smashing Pumpkins "1979," to Nico's "These Days," to Beck's take on "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometimes," to "Head Over Heels" by Tears for Fears, to "Trying Your Luck" by The Strokes.

My friend explained that there was a word for this feeling in Portuguese: "saudade." Or as wiki puts it: "Saudade is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, well-being, which now triggers the senses and makes one live again."

Which is all a lead in to say that rising singer Tei Shi has called her debut EP Saudade (out November 12). A six-song collection—premiering in its entirety below—it tips the scales to the sad side, but is all the more soul-crushingly beautiful for it. Based in Brooklyn (via-Vancover and Bogotá), Tei Shi range is tonally akin to Feist and Lianne La Havas, and what's so goosebump-inducingly awesome about this EP is its range. There's "Nevermind The End" with its Moog rumbles and the vocals delivered from a faraway star, the spiky rounds of "Sicksasfuck," and the delicate acapella layers of love paean "Heart-shaped Birthmark."

Elegant, elegiac, and sensual (check the rhythmic shift at 1.58 on "Nature vs Nurture"), Saudade, is both excellently titled and the best thing we've heard all fall.

"Please fall with me…" she quivers on the choral R&B of "Adder(f)all." Done. - Noisey

"The song came about from taking three different ideas I had for separate songs and joining them into one," Valerie Teicher tells Rolling Stone. "Instead of making a really structured song I just looped these three sections/melody lines over one another, building them up and layering with harmonies. It was originally acapella and when the instrumentals were added it really came into it's own." - Rolling Stone

Here’s the slinky, slinky second track from Brooklyn-via-Vancover-via-Bogotá’s Tei Shi, here offering a more traditionally structured sort-of-R&B than on her ear-worming debut, “M&Ms,” whose video is also below. Tei Shi will self-release her Saudade EP on November 12th, and it’s shaping to be a real kick in the ass. - The FADER

We are documented fans of Tei Shi‘s beautiful (and beautifully titled) Saudade EP, and the adventurous debut is finally out today. Listen to Saudade in its entirety below — you’ve already heard the expansive, chill-inducing lead single “M&Ms” and equally entrancing follow-up “Nevermind the End,” so go ahead and start with gorgeous, wintry EP highlight “Adder(f)all” — and grab the EP right here. - Gorilla vs Bear

“Saudade” was always one of my favorite words (and one of the only I still remember well) from when I was studying Portuguese in college. We don’t have a comparable word in English, but it loosely translates to a mournful sense of nostalgia and connectedness. Brooklyn-via-Bogotá-and-Vancouver singer Tei Shi has named her debut EP after the word and it is its perfect sonic embodiment. “Nature Vs. Nuture” is a beacon of melancholia’s painful beauty. The cut is a cascading bedroom-R&B and future-pop track that evolves from quiet, but dizzying layers of harmonies into fleshed out vocal rounds with a Tropcalía-tinged backbone. It’s inescapable. Check it out below. - Stereogum