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The Telescopes
Hidden Fields (August 7th, 2015)

The Telescopes — Hidden Fields (August 7th, 2015)

  The Telescopes — Hidden Fields (August 7th, 2015)
•»  Za hranicemi přirozeného vidění. Hidden Fields představuje binární svět čistého hluku stanoveného proti nejstručnějším přestávkám pro mlčení mezi stopami. Je to výlučně and ounly v průběhu klidné chvíle, během které můžete pochopit, jak obrovské je to album. Jeho pravděpodobným vrcholem je “In Every Sense”, ale každý odvážný muž či žena si v něm najde tu svoji, kterou mu budou hrát na zábavě.
•»  ‘Absence’ plaví city přes srdce temnoty a tam je vždy pocit předtuchy.
Location: UK
Album release: August 7th, 2015
Record Label: Tapete
Duration:     35:05
Tracks:
01 You Know The Way     4:57
02 Absence     5:29
03 In Every Sense     5:45
04 Don't Bring Me Round     3:34
05 The Living Things     15:20
•»  from beyond the realm of natural vision.
•»  a field report from the outer reaches.
•»  the primitive howl of the all–embracing.
•»  inner frequency rushes of (un)balanced form.
•»  recorded in past, present, future, tense in Glasgow,
•»  with the incendiary st deluxe.
•»  this is 3AM infernal.
•»  the crack in the cosmic egg.
•»  growing eyes.
•»  hidden fields.
•»  Founded in 1987 by Stephen Lawrie. The Telescopes have been mining a unique anti–myopian seam of highly influential experimental, drone, noise, dream & psych for over 20 years.
•»  Their first record was a split flex–disc with Loop on Cheree Records. After a further two critically acclaimed singles for the label, they moved to What Goes On Records, where they released another two EPs and their debut album “Taste”. All of which found their way to the top of the UK independent charts, gathering ‘single of the week’ / ‘album of the month’ status in all of the British music papers of the time.
•»  Tours followed with Spacemen 3, Primal Scream and The Jesus and Mary Chain. •»  And it wasn’t long before The Telescopes were headliners themselves. Bark Psychosis, Whipping Boy, Slowdive, Bleach, The Cranes and Ride all played some of their earlier shows supporting them. In 1990 the group appeared at one of the UK’s biggest festivals of the time, The Reading Festival. They were one of the few bands that weren’t bottled off the stage at the event. However, the increasing violent interactions with audiences at their shows saw the group step away from their noise origins and head towards a more introspective psychedelic sound. It was around this time that What Goes On folded and Alan McGee stepped in to release the group's material from the hands of official receivership.
•»  One of the more interesting bands that were signed to Creation Records. The group released their second album and a string of EPs for the label. Working with Douglas Hart (The Jesus and Mary Chain) on their videos, visual artist Paul Cannel on their sleeve work and Laika’s Guy Fixsen in the studio. The final EP for the label registered in the UK mainstream top 80 after being hit listed on BBC Radio 1 by Mark Goodyear. The group were also favoured by John Peel and recorded two BBC Radio 1 sessions for him. Marc Riley and Mark Radcliffe also had them in the studio for a session around the time of their 2nd album and MTV ran features. The Guardian’s Alexis Petridis described The Telescopes as having “an almost fragile sense of elegance and melody”.
•»  Then in 1992 the group underwent an eight year hiatus, resuming output in the year 2000 with a revolving line up. A stream of releases followed on labels such as Double Agent (USA), Trensmat (Ireland), Champion Version (UK), Antenna (UK), Norman Records (UK), Static Charge (UK), Mind Expansion (USA), Fourier Transform (UK), Textile Records (France), Dream Machine Records (UK) and Hungry Audio (UK). Most physical copies selling out in advance.
•»  “The Telescopes have resurfaced and I am amazed and glad they are still practicing their mysterious art” — (John Peel)
•»  “An odd but by no means unwelcome return” — (Q Magazine)
•»  The Wire magazine described them as having “a very real & crazy originality that carries fat tons of wallop” and the NME found them “in another universe altogether, incredible”. Arch drude Julian Cope has also championed two of their releases on his Head Heritage site, referring to their “suspended–in–space magnificence”.
•»  In 2011 they were invited by Portishead to play at the first ever ATP festival at Alexandre Palace in London. The following year The Black Angels / Reverberation Appreciation Society invited them to Austin Psych Fest 2012.
•»  Following the release of their 7th LP, “Harm”, on Seattle–based label Neon Sigh, the group toured almost non stop over the following two years. Covering Scandinavia, Europe, Russia, Latvia, Estonia, the Ukraine, the UK, USA, the Middle East, and Ireland.
•»  Meanwhile, The Telescopes have signed with Hamburg’s Tapete Records. A new album, “Hidden Fields”, The Telescopes 8th, is scheduled for release in August of 2015. Recorded in Glasgow, with St deluxe. “Hidden Fields” is an unexpected return from the group's recent expeditions into the outer reaches of freedrone noise. The psychiatric sounds of The Telescopes in a concise inner sensory rush. This is their most song based output for some time.
•»  “Every sound you ever heard was but a preliminary exercise in hearing, for the all embracing maelstrom of The Telescopes” — (Melody Maker, 1989)
•»  Keep a watchful ear …
REVIEW
By Graeme Marsh | Posted on 9 Aug 2015 | Score: ****
•»  All music is art. Whether or not you like that piece of art is largely irrelevant for you to be able to appreciate the creativity process from which it came. But even art with little instant appeal to your ears and eyes has the power to enhance, if given the chance to do so. If you’re a newcomer to the wonders of The Telescopes, then you must first put aside all preconceptions of what type of music appeals to you and simply focus on the fact that it is unequivocally art.
•»  For all intents and purposes, Stephen Lawrie has been the one constant creative artist for The Telescopes since their 1987 formation, he being the only remaining founder member. During the past 28 years the band have taken quite a journey, from shoegaze to noise rock to psychedelic rock to space rock via numerous band members and now, for studio album number eight, Lawrie heads back towards a more familiar song structure — in the main. The band recently signed to German label Tapete, but there’s no Krautrock on show here, it’s mind–melting feedback screech infused psychedelia recorded in Glasgow.
•»  At just five tracks, a first look will have you thinking it’s an EP rather than LP. But album closer The Living Things lasts a colossal 15 minutes and it is undeniably the one track that is Hidden Fields’ heart. It walks a pedestrian trudge through an imaginary icy field of broken glass, debris and post–apocalyptic mayhem, underpinned by morbid wails and what can only be compared to your primary school teacher screeching their nails down the blackboard to silence the classroom. It’s an absolute monster, sounding at times like Newcombe’s BJM meeting Psychocandy era The Jesus And Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine — its persistent bass line will burrow itself into your brain; beware, you may lose your mind in here.
•»  All other tracks are mere snippets in comparison, the lengthiest being In Every Sense which is a killer droning beast akin to JAMC this time allowing what could be The Cure’s Robert Smith the most microscopic of input in the shape of an almost inaudible guitar melody that pops up for a few seconds. It’s like the bowels of hell closing the lid on creative forces trapped below, an occasional whiff escaping from the pit of doom. Another five and a half minutes are occupied by Absence, where reverb and drone create an atmosphere of desolation amidst a simple undulating guitar line before fading out into post–transmission fuzz like those good old days when TV channels actually closed rather than continue throughout the night.
•»  Opening track You Know The Way pulses between two chords, more shockingly intense screeching forms the body of the track amidst all sorts of horror, in fact it’s the sort of track you could envisage ghouls reawakening to in the cemetery on the other side of the street so keep the volume down for this one. Don’t Bring Me Round is more of the same, albeit in a less intrusive three and a half minutes of psychotic madness.
•»  Hidden Fields is certainly more accessible than more recent efforts, but then how many Telescopes fans like them for their accessibility? Strangely mesmerising and addictive, this album will have you in its hold if given the chance. Wield it like a shield — use it to block out everything around you when it all becomes too much; hide away, become enwrapped within its claws. Headphones on, volume up high, listen carefully and you will find treasures that you probably didn’t even know existed under the howling screech of noise that is Hidden Fields. •»  http://www.musicomh.com/
REVIEW
Jeremy Allen, July 1st, 2015 14:44
•»  The Telescopes might have formed way back in 1987, though on Hidden Fields it's as if they're drawing on the dawning of time itself for influence, an atavistic maelstrom as momentous as the first day. They're certainly not the only band to record an album of beautiful, ear–shredding drone noise of course, but few groups manage to conflate sensory overload with such a keen sense of melody. It's these shards of tune that peak through the sonic wall of noise that hint at humanity and the frailty that goes with it. Otherwise it's blocks of rampant squall and peripheral feedback all the way, most especially exemplified on album closer 'The Living Things', an impressive and irrepressible 15 minutes of cathartic uproar.
•»  The melodic element — buried as it is — shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. Though the band founded by Stephen Lawrie emerged around the same time as My Bloody Valentine, their first album Taste, released in 1989, had enough moments of opiated–up euphoria to make you think they had more in common with contemporaries Spaceman 3 and even early Primal Scream; a song like 'Oil Seed Rape' was a confusing two–cars–welded–together kind of a number, floating on an ethereal cloud one moment, then kicking out like a vituperative punk mule the next. They continued to confound on the eponymously titled Creation release (later reissued as Untitled Second), still dodging classification, but submitting to the prevailing shoegazing milieu that characterised 1992. There are odd time signatures thrown in, and even jazzy moments — brushes and vertiginous piano tinkling on the gorgeous 'You Set My Soul' — though at the time, they seemed less like their own band than part of a stable, located somewhere between labelmates the Boo Radleys and the Jesus And Mary Chain.
•»  The real sonic meanderings and record label itinerancy began in earnest from 2000 when the band regrouped after an eight year sabbatical. Playing with a revolving lineup, the sound started to become denser, the tunes gradually retreating into the comfort of white noise. 15 years later following the most unconventional of journeys, The Telescopes are still here, and somehow they sound more vital than they ever did. •»  There's a glowering menace about opener 'You Know The Way', and yet even shifting as it does between two chords with Lawrie growling from the pit of his soul, it still somehow retains the scar of accessibility. Like those other former contemporaries Nirvana, you can almost detect a battle between the desire to be nihilistic and the innate gift for a tune that refuses to be suppressed. 
•» 'Absence' sails through a heart of darkness, and there's always a sense of foreboding even if there's no slaying at the end of it; if it imbues the spirit of the Velvet Underground's 'Venus In Furs', it also drags it some place even more shady (although it would be hard to top the source material of the Lou Reed lyric). And 'In Every Sense', with its heavy drone guitars, doesn't sound unlike the Mary Chain, though it manages to be more tenebrous and druggy. Hot and oppressive like a heavy chinook blowing down a mountain, 'Don't Bring Me Round' pounds away as a finger food sized preprandial before the main event, the corrosive and dissonant closing epic.
•» Hidden Fields presents a binary world of pure noise set against the briefest interludes of silence between the tracks. It's only during the quiet moments that you can comprehend just how vast this album is. •» http://thequietus.com/
Del Chaney, JULY 24, 2015 / PRIMAL MUSIC BLOG
•» Far from the introspective ears of the mainstream media whores & hidden deep within a swirling mass of droning guitars and reverb laced vocals lies the ingenious mind of seminal experimental psychedelic explorer / founder & sole remaining member of legendary UK based band ‘The Telescopes’ AKA Mr. Stephen Lawrie! Founded in 1987 ‘The Telescopes’ have been creating a seriously addictive brand of psychedelically infused noisy space rock, intertwined at times with a shimmering intense melodic brilliance that transcends even this modern day spaced out shoegazing rebirth thus continually giving them the ability to transport the listener back to a world where musical experimentation is king & floating in a suspended reverberating whirlwind is common place. To most musical commentators they were the underdogs of the 80’s /90’s but to me they were the dogs bollox and are more relevant today, in my opinion, than any of the recently reformed musical bandwagon riders.
•» As you can probably gather I am & have always been a Telescopes fan. Back in the early days when my friends were following the exploits of Slowdive & Ride or trying without hope to understand the inner confines of ‘Creation Records’ own — ‘My Bloody Valentine’ I was more interested in what ‘The Telescopes’ were experimenting with musically. It was Spacemen 3, The Telescopes, The Velvet Underground & Jesus And Mary Chain that soundtracked my early pre–adult life. I began listening to them in school after I was handed a DIY home recorded copied cassette of their very first release entitled ‘Taste’ & was instantly hooked on the brilliant single ‘The Perfect Needle’. But it wasn’t until their follow up, the epic self titled monolith (or if your new fan of the band the aptly named reissued version — ‘Untitled Second’ ) that I really began to sit up & take note of just what this band could create collectively! It was a sonic awakening! A full on rollercoaster ride of shimmering brilliance with tracks such as Flying, High On Fire, Ocean Drive & the stunning Sleepwalk leading the charge. Did they go all baggy around this time? Probably! But I tend to see it as a natural experimental progression on the road to musical martyrdom.
•» ‘The Telescopes’ called it a day in 1992 but after a 8 year hiatus they underwent a sonic resurrection to rave live reviews (within the ever circling music press) but with a revolving door policy when it came to band members! They regrouped & returned to their foundation sound of melodic white noise, drone & space rock. Throughout this resurrection there was one continuous shining beacon of light in the guise of the ever present Stephen Lawrie! The band, in various forms, went on to release a plethora of immense albums including the brilliantly intense ‘Third Wave (2002)‘ followed by the experimental ‘Number 4 (2005)’ & then ‘Hungry Audio Tapes ( 2006)’, ‘Infinite Suns (2008)’, ‘HARM (2013)’, various compilations & live albums, split 7’ & 10’ singles with various bands including ‘A Place To Bury Strangers’ & ‘Deadly Cradle Death’. The list goes on!
•» Now Stephen Lawrie has teamed up brilliant Glasgow based noise rockers ‘St Deluxe’ to release a brand new 5 track album entitled ‘Hidden Fields’ (out on the 7th August 15) via ‘Tapete Records’. This release continues his love of experimental droning space rock & dreamy infectious mind bending soundscapes.
•» The EP opens up with the dark menacing overtones of ‘You Know The Way’. A howling white knuckle ride through layers of feedback, throbbing bass lines & addictive drum patterns that somehow seem to sit perfectly on a two chord guitar progression of melodic brilliance reminiscent in parts to early Sub–Pop era ‘Mudhoney’ or ‘Sonic Youth’. Add into the mix that soul wrenching vocal line & that ever present screaming guitar and we have our favourite track right here! Simply Immense! Next up we’re into early ‘Spaceman 3’ territory with the droning melodic overtones of ‘Absence’. This for me is music made for coming down to (all be it via headphones!) ‘In Every Sense’ screams ‘The Velvet Underground meets Jesus And Mary Chain’ but with a heavier droning maelstrom of sound more commonly found within the modern day droning genre with bands such as Scottish based outfit ’The Cherry Wave’ or UK based ’93 Million Miles From The Sun’ leading the charge. Next up, track 4 — ‘Don’t Bring Me Round’ is a swirling whirlwind of dark oppressive brilliance intertwined with screaming guitars, hypnotic drums & a demonic vocal line that somehow seems to dig itself out of the overall sound & hug a melodic undertone of shimmering intensity. Highly addictive in parts but with a musical brilliance that will leave you gobsmacked. The closing track on ‘Hidden Fields’ should have a post code all of its own! Coming in at 15 minutes plus ‘The Living Things’ is a chaotic collision of swirling guitars, droning noisy sounds & shuffling drums that somehow all intertwine into musical logic! Put simply it makes musical sense! This track belongs on a short film outlining one mans decent into suspended reverberation. Its the ‘TRON’ of the musical world — a bloody masterpiece!
•» ‘Hidden Fields’ is a musical rollercoaster ride through multifaceted layers of sonic goodness. Not for the faint hearted, this oppressive collection of tracks needs continuous listens to peel back the dark overpowering sense of foreboding that swirls around its inner being. But once you hear its shimmering melodic core it will have you hooked on its internal beauty. A truly magnificent adventure to a world of sonic abandonment & one that I will return to again & again. •» http://primalmusicblog.com/
Label: http://www.tapeterecords.de/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kickthewall
Bandcamp: http://thetelescopes.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thetelescopesuk?_rdr=p
Press:
Agent: antenna. worldwide. / / el borracho dischi. europe.
http://www.elborrachodischi.de/artist/the-telescopes/
•» •» •» •» •» •» •» •» •» •» •» •» •» •» •» •» •» •» •» •» •» •» •» •»

The Telescopes
Hidden Fields (August 7th, 2015)

 

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