Malditos Bastardos – THE TELESCOPES: As light return (Tapete Records, 2017)

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Una auténtica patada a las entrañas del Indie es este último trabajo de la banda de Stephen Lawrie, THE TELESCOPES. Un disco en el que dan un giro de ciento ochenta grados a su poducción anterior, gestando un trabajo absolutamente epatador: una sinfonía de Noise y de guitarras a un sonido insano. Un gusto para oídos habituados a los sonidos del Noise y el Pop más oscuro. 

“The Telescopes‘ 2017 album, As Light Return, is an almost 180-degree turn from their previous album, Hidden Fields. That record was their most song-based effort in years, with melodies and hooks poking out through the gnarly waves of guitar noise. In contrast, As Light Return is an almost unbroken wall of guitar noise, with nary a song to be found. Stephen Lawrie is joined by members of the band St Deluxe and together they craft an oppressive, claustrophobia-inducing album made up of tortured guitar drones and feedback, a rhythm section that sounds like it’s stripping its gears, deeply buried vocals, and an overall feeling that lands several stops past menacing. Four of the five tracks break the seven-minute mark and only the slightly shorter “You Can’t Reach What You Hunger” comes close to resembling a song. It’s a far cry from Hidden Fields, but it’s in line with things the Telescopes have done before. Lawrie has always been a restless musician with a need to experiment and push boundaries. When he wanted to make a pop album, it was the most shimmering and bright thing ever (1992’s self-titled album); when he wants to make something more abstract and stark, As Light Return is the result. It’s gloomy, bleak, forbidding, and not much fun to listen to, but it’s impressive all the same. The undulating white noise is off-putting at first, but once you surrender to the harsh reality of it, the effect can be soothing in a strange way. Listening to the four-part suite that makes up the bulk of the album is like crawling inside the shuddering hull of a giant piece of industrial machinery, being pummeled unmercifully, and then taking a long, dreamless nap. Not something one would want to do every day, but for when that experience seems like the best course to choose, Lawrie and his collaborators have you covered. As Light Return might not be the most inventive or exciting record the Telescopes have made over their long career of defying expectations, but it is the purest expression of their dark and twisted, noise-battered souls, and for that reason alone it is worth hearing at least once” (AllMusic)

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Revisiones – THE TELESCOPES: Splashdown, The Complete Creation Recordings(1990-1992) (Cherry Red Records, 2015)

Reedición de los temas que THE TELESCOPES sacaron a la luz con Creation Recordings, la compañía que les reclutó en 1990 y con la que editaron cuatro Ep´s a los que se les ha unido una sesión con John Peel y algunos cortes extra. Lo mejor del Shoegaze Psicodélico del momento al alcance de este álbum doble publicado en 2015.

“Taken together, the recordings build a pretty strong case that the Telescopes were one of the most daring, most creative, and most successful bands of the era: shoegaze, dream pop, or take your pick. On the EPs, the band plus their producers (Richard Formbyand Guy Fixsen) were able to balance very poppy, built-to-top-the-indie-chart tracks like “Everso” and “Celeste” with guitar freakouts (“Precious Little), expanded headphone jam pieces (“Celestial”), psychedelic wanderings (“Soul Full of Tears”), dark dirges (“I Sense”), and quiet, almost hymnlike songs (the delicate “All a Dreams”). Plus they did a fine Beach Boys cover — getting in ahead of the pack of Wilson fanatics with a majestic cover of “Never Learn Not to Love,” penned by Dennis Wilson(and Charles Manson). These records showed the band gaining strength with each release, mastering songwriting, arranging, and the studio as they built up to their masterpiece 1992 album. Working with Fixsen, the band — and especially leader Stephen Lawrie — truly came into their own. From the very first notes, the songs burst out of the speakers with a graceful widescreen power. The guitars sound huge and fill every corner of the mix, Lawrie‘s sneering vocals sound rich and tough and tender all at once, the other bandmembers deliver seriously great performances, and the production is brilliant. The songs range from moody and almost jazz-like in their precision to sweeping epics that feel impossibly big, but all of them will stick in your brain for years to come. The EPs and album would have been enough to make the set essential, but the bonuses add much value. The Peel Session shows that the Telescopes were able to re-create the sound of the album on the fly, the covers of the Velvet Underground (“Candy Says”) and the Who (“The Good’s Gone”) are pleasingly irreverent and bewilderingly weird respectively, and the rarely heard outtakes are awesome, especially the alternate version of one of their best songs, “Flying.” While the Telescopes may not have gotten the same critical love as some of their peers, or reached the same level of commercial success, this set proves that they were the artistic equal of any of them. The set is an absolute stop-everything-and-buy-it-now must-have for fans of shoegaze, dream pop, and psych-pop” (All Music)

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