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.

LSD and the Search for God – Heaven Is a Place EP

Many years ago – it was probably 2003 ’cause for sure I was still living in Bologna – Stephen Lawrie from The Telescopes gave me a VHS Tape with official videos and rarities from the Creation golden age. I have no idea now in the digital era about how to watch it again, although it is well stored, but it wouldn’t be surprising and neither out of place to find out a video from LSD and The Search for God in between My Bloody Valentine, Swervedriver and Ride. So, are we talking of mere revivalism? It depends on the point of view. If you’re searching for God, better to take a stroll into Heaven, and Heaven is a place “where nothing ever happens”. There are not watches, calendars or agendas amongst the clouds, not even hourglasses, it can be imagined. It’s an eternal state of ecstasy and blessed contemplation over there. And these sounds, these rising guitars, these shoegazing loops, these celestial female vocals floating around, it’s ecstasy indeed. Do we really need to put them under the fake test of time passing? Should we consider them less delightful because it’s not 1995? Time is just a human invention, and I’m quite sure that if I’d have a way to play that VHS again I’d find out that God made one of his tricks – a minor miracle just for fun – adding an LSD and The Search for God song to the playlist.
And it would sound just perfectly heavenly.
“Heaven Is a Place EP” comes out on January 15th on Deep Space Recordings, nine years after the San Francisco’s band debut, and with a full European tour scheduled in March.

Something Happened – A retrospective for the year 2015 (in sounds)

So “another year’s over“, as that guy from Liverpool used to sing. Starting this blog has been probably the most important thing for me this year, and with this I want to thank everyone who actually read, and felt, and understood why and out of what kind of vision and intentions this blog was born.
It would be pretentious to list a “Best of” 2015. First it’s clearly impossible to listen to any release, there are too many. Second, I like things very different, it’s more a matter of attitude than of actual sounds.
So this is just a list of music that has been inspiring and mind-opening and heart-moving during the last twelve months, listed more or less in chronological order with no aim to create a chart.
Keep asking the sky. Always.

Follakzoid – III

Angles of walls of skyscrapers made with steel, glass and concrete.

Spectres – Dying

Radical. Uncompromising. The rebels with a cause.

Serpent Power – Serpent Power

A kaleidoscopic journey to the shores of the wildest and most unconstrained fantasy. Technicolor surreal.

10000 Russos – 10000 Russos

Dance to the underground, to the abandoned underground of a lost civilization. The new barbarians.

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Freedom Tower / No Wave Dance Party

Can you feel it? Can you feel the blues? Can you stand their bites and can you walk with them? They can.

The Telescopes – Hidden Fields

Not strawberries fields definitely. Un voyage au centre de la Terre.

Singapore Sling – Psych Fuck

For we’re all lost in a labyrinth of morphing mirrors, life itself is probably just an illusion, and a good heart these days is very hard to find.

Gunman & The Holy Ghosts – The Story of Radiate & Novocaine

That book with the melancholic ending you have finished to read before going to bed, and you dream about in the night. Tales for the new bohemians.

The Japanese Girl – Sonic-Shaped Life

A cursed castle overlooked by bats and a full moon. A sorcery. Let’s do that time warp again.

Throw Down Bones – Throw Down Bones

A leap of pure faith. A flight on the wings of the white dragon.

Fuzz Club Festival – The Kids Are Allright

We’re in the heart of East London, just by London Fields, one of the places where tourists will head in the future, as one of cult symbols of the city‘s in this second decade of the new millennium.
Maybe they will also take a tour of London Fields Brewery, the space where the first Fuzz Club Festival was held. Why not? In the end all the people here made something, starting from nothing but passion, ideas, and friendship.
Yes, friendship is an important word for this bunch, and it made me realise why it was worth to travel all over from Italy for these two days. Not that I am the only one, I can see familiar faces from Ireland, France, even Finland and Spain! And the greetings and the hugs and the smiles are genuine and warm-hearted. Many of the bands playing on these stages are just very talented friends playing together, sharing a love for sounds which are mind-cleaning beauty.
Let’s take Throw Down Bones and The KVB.  I can still remember an
evening at the Victoria, a pub close to MileEnd. It was 2010, Klaus and Kat were playing with their first band Suicide Party, Dave and Frankie were there as Piatcions, it was I think their second Uk tour. The sound engineer was a complete asshole, totally messed up the bands sounds. There was a kind of riot from the stage against him, and he was fired on the spot by the venue’s owner!
Now, late 2015, The KVB play a mint, programmatically cold but intense set tonight. They’re pure and charming and their electronic vibes unfold bittersweet melodies. They’re ready for even bigger things, with the new album due out early next year on Portishead’s Invada Records.

And Throw Down Bones, Frankie and Dave’s new project, is the perfect opener for the Fest. It’s a controlled spaceship flying up and down on kaleidoscopic waves to incessantly explore a new universe. Or perhaps the snowy peaks of the beautiful Alps where they come from. It’s a pulsating beat of an heart well trained for a long marathon. This time they’ll take what’s theirs, they can be the new Chemical Brothers, if you can remember when Chemical Brothers were actually cool.
10.000 Russos are different from when I saw them at Reverence in Valada. That stage was sooo big! They were even a bit scared of playing on such a big stage, but it worked well, it was kraut and danceable. Maybe tonight they feel more at ease on this normal-sized stage, I would say the sound is less steel and more wood, more guitars and less samples, at least this is how it can be heard from the audience. Damn good anyway.
Camera are on the other stage, it’s not first time I see them. They’re elaborated and experimental, broken edges, curves, sudden pitfalls. It’s late when they play, probably a fresher mind would have helped to focus with the due attention on their set.

Photo by Ollie Thomas

And The Telescopes...  WTF? I mean I know Stephen from the very far away 2003 (yes it’s long ago!) when I brought them to Italy booking a tour for them the very first time. I think I have seen so many incarnations of The Telescopes – including a brief experience as experimental duo – that’s even hard to remember. But tonight they take the “music and friendship” thing to extreme consequences, with a stage (and a floor) where all the people around here who have played with Stephen Lawrie once at least in their life join the banquet. Nick, Dan and Byron from One Unique Signal, Frankie from Thrown Down Bones, Dave from The Koolaid Electric Company…there is a song list on the floor but it’s not so trustable. It’s just about pushing the buttons to start the plane’s engine and take it as far as it can go, through downdrafts, crashes, death rolls, near-collisions. Sometimes you feel they’re doing this mostly for themselves, to prove how much adrenaline their blood can produce through noises. But somewhat it works. Something unique happened, and – as usual – it was unexpected.

What the night brings we know it so well. Just a quick check on our facebook timeline, and from this oasis of goodness we’re trashed mercilessly in the hell of Bataclan.
Ice bucket.

The day after both Dead Rabbits and 10.000 Russos have to deal with cancellation for their due gigs in Paris, but they’re more worried about their friends there and the madness going on than about anything else. André from 10.000 Russos tells me they wouldn’t have go there anyway, for safety reasons. Sad but reasonable. And Wall of Death decided to not travel. Sad but understandable.
There are more talks today, some gigs I have missed them, or seen them in very small doses.
Dead Rabbits start the day, with their abrasive but melodic moods, their easily recognisable hooks and melodies, their stage presence a bit indie and nerd, down to earth but remarkable. With a good and proper production this band could have one hit after the other: radio friendly, British rock at its best and with the most noble accents. I sincerely hope they’ll make it.
The Janitors and Lola Colt are of another breed, the true rock’n’roll cave where women are sexy creatures wearing black lace and men have grease in their hair. They take us on a ride in a black Chevrolet and offer us a pack of Red Marlboro and a glass of gin.
The Orange Revival fill the stage with a chilled out Scandinavian recipe of real psychedelic introspection.
The Myrrors, maybe the most awaited act of the weekend, their first time in Europe after the reunion of 2102, take things to a completely different field, where the delicate threads of strings play amongst a solid ground of drones. It’s landscape music, music for big and empty spaces and intimate thoughts. My boots are not made for walking- not even for standing too long – and sitting quietly on the floor on one side of the room seems to be the best way to appreciate with eyes closed this mesmerising journey.
I’m ashamed to reveal I completely missed Mugstar while looking for food in the surroundings. But there are not enough words of enthusiasm I could spend for The Cult of Dom Keller, who I find very different and grown up from last time I saw them – not far from here at The Waiting Room in Stokey – last Spring. The air in the smaller room is getting hot, and their arsenal of keyboards, synths and guitars is loaded for dancing. It’s like Thee Hypnotics with the groove of Primal Scream, Vanishing Point – era. So damn heavy and trancey. The new album is on the way. They’ll have to play big festivals next summer, for everyone’s delight.
The trippy beats of Radar Men from the Moon are a proper way to end this marathon. You don’t have to pay attention, it’s just ok to let your body be filled by rhythms and unchain your mind to wander free over their endless circles of chords.
Everything’s allright. We’re all in this together – again – sharing a spirit of collaboration, mutual respect, true care.
May this circle remain unbroken, may it become bigger and larger, and may stay as a circle of friends, good and like-minded people as it was, and still it is.