montyfood

When the official history of electronic music gets written up in neat handwriting and submitted to the shelves of cultural history I sure hope that Telefon Tel Aviv gets a good few pages and isn’t simply relegated to some disparaging marginal footnote (you know, “a list of derivative american synth bands that styled themselves on previous musical luminaries” sort of thing). After the untimely death of one half of the band, Charles Cooper, earlier this year, their latest album which was released only weeks before his passing, stands as a testament to his and Joshua Eustis’ immense talent. ‘Immolate Yourself’ is a remarkable album featuring Telefon Tel Aviv’s signature booming, shattering, juddering electronic beats married to rich chordal washes and shimmering shining melodic phrases. And in the midst of it all, Eustis’ lilting open singing, wrapped in reverb and sounding like monastic plainsong lost in the machine. It’s a departure from their previous works which seemed like fragile shattering overtures predicated on forensic glitchy microsampling and warm electronic piano tones. Still there’s the incredible meticulous attention to rhythmic detail, but the tonal character of the new material is a more overt synthetic sound derived from classic analogue synthesis: fat slabby basses, warm undulating pads, neon bright pizzicato top lines, all mixed to tape to further saturate the textures. It trembles with echoes of mid-eighties Depeche Mode, carries tinges of post-Foxx Ultravox (indeed, it hints at John Foxx’s solo sound too), and I hear strains of BGM/Naughty Boys era YMO in there too.

After Cooper’s demise, Eustis had stated that Telefon Tel Aviv’s tour to promote this album was understandably cancelled. So I was surprised and excited when my friend told me only a week or so beforehand that they were appearing in London. Eustis was backed up by Fredo Nogueira, a close friend of the band who had played guitar on their second album ‘Map of What is Effortless’. Soaking up the latest Telefon Tel Aviv tracks live at the Hoxton Bar and Kitchen last week made me appreciate afresh just how ingenious and intricate they are. And how they once again refute the persistent nonsense that sequenced synthesised sounds are somehow hard and unemotional.

I think it was Elvis Costello who suggested that writing about music is like dancing about architecture. Telefon Tel Aviv’s new tunes sound like overpowering architectural structures but many make you want to dance inside them. Music for dimly lit cyber cathedrals.