The Psychiatric Sound of The Telescopes

We have reached Stephen Lawrie, mastermind of The Telescopes, while he was packing to embark in a very long tour that brought them on stages all over Europe. A well deserved trip after the release of new album “Hidden Fields” – out early August 2015 – on Hamburg-based Tapete Records. A work so dense and thick to be worth more talks with Stephen, about its genesis and everything’s gravitating around The Telescopes universe. There are bright stars, supernovas exploding and black holes to run away from, as you can read here.

Q – In the press release for Hidden Fields you define your sound as “Psychiatric”, which is taking to extreme consequences the use of the now abused prefix “Psych”. Is it just a joke, or the choice of this word has a meaning?
SL – Psych music is a common thread throughout The Telescopes records, but I agree, with over use the phrase has lost potency. Quite a few of the bands now associated with the genre seem like pop groups, harking back to the sounds of the 60s without really adding anything, which is fine but it doesn’t take me there.
I wrote Taste, Harm and Hidden Fields after receiving psychiatric help. Writing assists me in making my own sense of things. I feel less programmed for it. More human. I was just acknowledging that side of The Telescopes when I referred to our sound in that way. It’s more relevant to it than 60s music.

Q – I had the chance of seeing The Telescopes live not a few times. What I like is that everytime is different, you just do not know what to expect and what direction the night might go. How would you describe your approach on stage, and how do you feel the experience from the inside?
SL – It’s just what happens, there’s no method or formula behind it. It’s like being in a trance or a spell; you have to become part of the music.

Q – You always had and are going to have a very intense live schedule. It doesn’t look like The Telescopes are a choosy band when it comes to where and when to perform. What’s driving you in wanting to play as much as possible?
SL – Playing live is crucial to The Telescopes music. It’s a reminder of everything that’s important, it’s beneficial to the creativity.

Q – I know that the band’s line up is quite flexible, and you employ different musicians in different occasions. What determines your choices?
SL – The music determines the choices, along with people’s availability and geographic location.

Q – Having been there quite often, could you tell the differences in being a musician / artist in Europe and in the States?
SL – Despite the necessity most people have for music in their lives I’d say that in my experience, being a musician is hardly respected as a legitimate pursuit anywhere.

Q – You have played in Israel, a controversial country where a few musicians refused to play as a political statement. What’s your point of view on this and how it affected your decision to go there?
SL – We also played in Russia just before it all kicked off in Ukraine; we played there as well, in Kiev. We don’t play for governments; we play for people. The Telescopes are all embracing. I have no idea what belief systems audience members that come to London or Paris shows have. If I were to start boycotting countries because of their government’s then I would have to boycott the UK and America.
I don’t support the Israeli government; I don’t support the current UK government. The Telescopes don’t support any political agenda. Some of the people who play with me chose not to go, I respect their decisions entirely and they respect mine.
Personally, I questioned whether or not I could justify boycotting a whole race of people anywhere for the actions of their government. Why should people always have to suffer the consequences? Shouldn’t governments be accountable for their own actions?
I don’t imagine the Israeli Government care either way if a minority group in their society are deprived of witnessing The Telescopes music; it doesn’t affect them.
Ultimately, it felt ignorant to sit in judgement from afar so I had to see for myself. I think demonising artists for going there diverts attention away from the real issues.

Q – Hidden Fields have been recorded in Glasgow with St. Deluxe. Can you tell us more about them and how the collaboration started?
SL – St Deluxe are Jamie Cameron, Brian McEwan and Ross Cameron. They have recorded for Slaughter Joe Foster’s Poppydisc label, Dream Machine Records and they have worked with Calvin Johnson producing them. Ross and Jamie do some excellent work with bands and musicians at Riverside Music Complex in Busby. Some of them have also played with the BMX Bandits and with Frances McKee.
Either Joe Foster or Martin Kirwan initiated collaborations between us. Martin used to play with St Deluxe and sometimes helps out with The Telescopes; he appears on Hidden Fields. I played an acoustic show in Glasgow where they joined me for a couple of songs and it grew from there. They’ve always had a great feel for The Telescopes music.

Q – Was the material for the album fully written before recordings or did you wanted space for improvising and experimenting during the sessions?
SL – Each song was fully written before it was recorded, but I left some passages open and directed everyone with a nod or a count when it was time for a change. Some of the overdubs were inspired / improvised in the studio; others were conceived back home in West Yorkshire.

Q – You’ve covered The Stooges “I Wanna Be Your Dog” for Fuzz Club Split 10” series. What about the choice of this song, that’s definitely a punk rock classic?
SL – Casper from Fuzz Club Records requested the song specifically. Casper said he thought all the best Psych music was basically rock’n’roll and he felt The Telescopes understood this. He thought it would be great if we covered it.
I grew up with the song; it was one of the first things I played in a band. So I was certainly taken by the idea. I’ve played it so many times. The version on the TV Eye Live LP was recorded on my 8th birthday.
The Eureka moment for me was adding an A# drone to the constant E drone throughout the original version, and playing it on a guitar instead of a piano. The harmonics of that gave me a slightly different option for the vocal register. I also had an idea for a more primitive approach to the rhythm. Those ideas gave me a way in for The Telescopes version. Taking on The Stooges at their own game would have been futile.

The KVB – Of Desire

Desire! Angel or Devil, it sets you on Fire. Some say Desire is the source of all Evil, and they look for Nirvana. Other say there are good and bad Desires…are the bad ones really Desires? Desires are not shadows, Desires are engines, sails and steps. Desire is the wings this new KVB‘s album has got, perfectly crafted and wide.
If there was anything goth in what Nicholas and Kat have been doing in the past, it’s gone. Not that these songs are not dark, there are plenty of deep synthesizers here, but how could you be not wanting to experiment with synths when you have at your disposal all equipment in Geoff Barrow’s studio? I’m pretty sure they had lots of fun with the toys’ arsenal! And yes the sounds are heavy, “V11939″ is steel industrial machines, it reminds of Depeche Mode’s “Master and Servant”, but instrumental. There are layers and layers of electronics merging with dreamy vocals on other tracks, but it feels safe into them, it feels calm and relaxating, like the darkness of a mother’s womb filled with water and love, it’s The Year We Make Contact and the big-eyed foetus looking at the world brand new. It’s the five notes of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, it’s Cupid and Psyche loving each other in the dark, it’s a Truth and it’s Faith which do not need a science testing, ’cause they do not rely on the past to write the future. Like a guy and girl from filthy and boring Southampton who moved to Berlin to imagine their own world of sounds and visuals with dedication and passion, for you and me and us and everyone to dive into it.
“Of Desire” was released on March 11th by Invada Records (UK) and Metropolis Records (Americas), as digital download, CD and vinyl.

Dead Skeletons – Live In Berlin

This album is a document. A document of something of value, of something that – not matter what – has affected to a point of no return many lives. This was the peak of Dead Skeletons. A venue packed with 800 people raving and dancing and singing to songs that will remain as hymns for a generation, tattoed on skins and souls. I haven’t heard this album, no need for, ’cause I was there that night, December 04th 2013, at SO36, not in the audience but as a friend, somewhat as part of the story. In the very end all started longtime before, when early 2012 I was asked by their publisher to help with the very first Dead Skeletons tour. I didn’t finish the job. There were lots of difficulties and problems I wasn’t aware of: a band in desperate need to recoup some money, promoters pushing to confirm gigs months in advance. Very complicated. But the idea of Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia was born when I offered Dead Skeletons to Harvest Sun promotion. I still have those emails. They thought of setting up a psych festival around the gig. So it was born. There were no Psych Fests in Europe at the time. The rest is history, good or bad that is, and you all know it.
This gig in Berlin it was the peak for Dead Skeletons. They had just released Dead Comet EP, a new album was announced for 2014, another spring tour was being booked already. It was safe they were heading and ready and fit for the big match. From the inside, it was a rollercoaster ride: when you are at the top, you crash to the bottom. That gig was good. I remember the blue lights, the heavy sounds filling the air with the smoke. A ceremony, a mass, a consacration. For the time they played, you couldn’t tell the tiredness, the issues, the doubts. It was deadly magic, yes, hanging between Nirvana and Hell.
That was a stressing tour. The band arrived at the venue after a 10 hours drive from Zurich. Control was slipping out of hands, expectations were driving and pushing to the point of break up.
The Thing was eating the Spirit. Everyone would have sold his soul to the devil to open that golden door, but for someones there must be a reason to do things and that reason cannot be fame, and neither money. So this vinyl is the document of the peak of Dead Skeletons, and it was high.
The endless nightly hours that followed, the light of a pale morning, then the darkness again, broken by the merciless lashes of the first snow of the winter…all that was just the sound of a chinese porcelain crashing to the ground, in silence. It was no one responsibility if at that crossing point everyone was struggling with ghosts and if all these ghosts met together and decided to hold a macabre party. It was like opening a Pandora’s box, and all the evils of the world came out, except hope.
So maybe now it is the right time to finally release these live recordings. It was great. A nightmare, a firework, an horror movie, a lesson to be learnt. A crash at 150mph. It has affected to the point of no return many lives. Mine for sure.
The album can be preordered now from Fuzz Club Records, and it’s a double 12″ with gatefold cover, but is also available on cd and cassette .
So listen and do not fear death and do not regret deaths, ’cause death is only a transformation. Your only one chance to be a butterfly.

Please Passion, not Fashion

“Limited 101 copies edition”
“Side D silk-screened by the artist”
“One different photo in every copy”
“180gr rainbow vinyl no hole in the middle”
“The artwork can be turned into a castle following some simple origami instructions”
Such is becoming the absurdity of the wax market. Don’t you have enough of reading announcements for new releases focusing on the ultra-limited editions and the packaging?
No words for the music. Where’s the music?
It wasn’t meant to be the most important thing?
The songs I loved and still love the most in my life, the ones who made me fell in love with rock’n’roll, many of them were recorded on a cheap cassette, waiting patiently for the radio to play them and then press Rec. Others are on vinyl yes, when that was the normal way to buy music and  they were pressed in millions of copies. Some of them are on Mp3s. Ok even now you can buy everything as Mp3, and I agree that a 33rpm is a good object to own, to touch, to look at. But the music first, please. There’s no precious artwork that can add value to ordinary sounds, and these days it seems that putting any sound into a gift box with a nice blue ribbon automatically makes it worth the price. It’s like collecting stamps, the more they are rare, the less they are available, the more the collectors are hungry for it. It’s an hipsteric attitude, to build your identity as true music lover from owning things a very few others can afford to own. It’s an adult upper class attitude, to spend £25 on a vinyl on pre-orders without having even listened to a single song from it.
Wasn’t rock’n’roll for the kids, for the freaks, for the rebels, a revenge for the ones who cannot make ends meet?
We need a punk revolution, not music to be pricey and elitist like a Versace dress. There’s no point in moaning about the teenagers listening to Miley or Justin when the good music is being marketed for Selfridge’s customers. Rock’n’roll is not for museum or art galleries, it is something to carry into your jeans’ pocket with fags and bus ticket. I want new bands who talk about their music not about their record label, who have words about their tours and the mess of them and the noise and who home-make their own promos again.
I’m craving for DIY and for bands to gain a loving following after hundreds of gigs in shit places and not planning to play big festivals after being signed by the hip label on the basis of two songs and one photo.
We need passion over fashion, a revolutionary and challenging popular culture that’s actually popular and reachable and mind-changing and life-turning.
This limited-editions scene is for poseurs.
Forget about it, and start listening.