Telepathe released their first album Dance Mother ALL the way back in 2009. I’ve talked before about what an amazing year for trendy music 2009 was (Phoenix’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest, The XX, Fever Ray, Manners by Passion Pit, Post-Nothing from Japandroids, Merriweather Post Pavilion – well slap my face and call my next venture a bicycle repair shop/coffee shop), but perhaps nothing quite achieved the same level of under-the-radar cool of Dance Mother, with its broodingly dark synths mixed with emotionally detached vocals from Busy Gangnes and Melissa Livaudais, however Its triumph was in never straying too far from a danceable beat. Think School of Seven Bells but much more intimidating to approach if you saw them on the street smoking a cigarette.
Six years later, after not really hearing a peep out of Telepathe and assuming they would just be one of those bands you spent an intense period of time hunting around for an obscure 7″ from and then forgetting quite why you went so nuts about them six months later, Telepathe have returned with an absolute, if slightly backwards looking, belter.
Destroyer was recorded three years ago and was held up by unexplained record company bureaucracy, which explains a lot of its anachronisms, but that doesn’t matter because right now because it’s finally out there in the wild (if the wild could be described as a collection of varyingly frustrating music streaming services) and making it’s regular way into my ears.
The most surprising thing about Telepathe’s development (circa 2011) is how earnestly they embraced pure pop, something only hinted at previously. ‘Drown Around Me’ sounds like the greatest song Kim Wilde never recorded, it’s thick with ambience and laser blasting synths, with gorgeous vocals carrying the melody. ‘Slow Learner’ has the sheen and accessibility of mid-80s Madonna, while ‘Damaged Raid’ flirts outrageously with Blondie.
However each of these lost Top of the Pops classics still makes room for Telepathe’s darker sensibilities in order to create something much more three-dimensional. Drum patterns skitter in and out of the ambience, the synths are understated but catchy as hell, so to are the lyrics, which are direct and seductive (“running in the night, put your hand in mine”) instead of ambiguously enigmatic as they were on Dance Mother.
Yes the influences are obvious and many, it’s also true that some of the better singles on the album were released as far back as 2011, but that shouldn’t take away from the fact that this an incredibly addictive listen and a gorgeous journey through Busy Gangnes and Melissa Livaudais’s extensive and very excellent 80s record collection.
Check out all the latest music releases in our new album reviews section, including Foals’ latest album What Went Down.
