October 2002 • Rockbites Alternative Daily
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October 2002 • Rockbites Alternative Daily
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The Telescopes metamorphose again on third LP 24 October 2002
Burton-Upon-Trent, UK’s The Telescopes put out a first album in 1989, called Taste, on the now defunct What Goes On label. It mixed Zen-oriented psychedelia with intense hardcore. The band’s untitled second album came out in 1991 on the also-now-defunct Creation label, revealing a mellower and more subdued side that pegged the band in the alternative music press as shoegazers—yet in my view they have always been too unpredictable and trenchant to share a sub-genre with, say, My Bloody Valentine, Lush, and Ride. Since LP number two, founders Stephen Lawrie and Joanna Doran have dealt with label troubles and have worked together in their other band, Unisex. Lawrie has also played and recorded with Sonic Boom (ex Spacemen 3) in Füxa. A couple of years ago, working with Unisex collaborator and soundtrack composer Nick Hemming, Lawrie found himself composing songs that sounded less like Unisex and more like The Telescopes, and decided it was time to make a third album under that banner. Titled Third Wave and released on NYC’s Double Agent records earlier this month for the US (and this past summer for the UK), the new album features 10 songs of slow, fuzzy, jazzy, and endlessly strange delight, like some auditory cocoon that swathes your body in dream-colored sound cloth. With a measure of humor to leaven the heavy proceedings, The Telescopes employ piano, strings, brass, Theramin, synths, samples, toys, and power tools, along with the usual rock instrumentation, to ensure you’ll have a pleasant trip. Among the song titles on Third Wave: 3D Jesus Ashtray, My Name Is Zardak (Drop Your Weapons), Moog Destroya, and You & I Are The Foxboy Noises. Soporifically slow album track Winter #2 features violins, cello, piano, and surrealistic rock percussion by way of an ultra-simplistic drum loop. A full minute in, as Doran and Lawrie begin to chant in harmony “Is this the way I’m feeling?/ Is this the way I feel?”, the music swells and then the voices vanish as processed bass and a stratospherically-high synth whine take over... while the drum loop, like some wind-up toy that keeps appearing around corners in a dream, keeps this twirling, lighter-than-air fabrication tethered to the ground. Four bites out of five. Rockbites ratings 5: life changing, 4: stunning, 3: captivating, 2: amusing, 1: annoying. | The Telescopes on Double Agent | | fan site | | interview on Creation tribute site | | CD from Amazon US | | top of page | |
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