Static Charge label (genepool/ universal)
180 gram heavyweight vinyl + free, immediate download
of the telescopes live at corsica studios.

A livid document. Recorded in pastpresentfuture tense.

In 2010, highly influential/ inspirational noise/psych revolutionaries The Telescopes gave a rare and memorable glimpse of their classic debut ‘Taste’. Which stormed the independent charts over twenty years ago, sending waves beyond the realm of natural vision that resonate still.

REVIEWS..
Within moments of them walking onstage, I forget where I am and what year it is.. Immediately I'm hit by a tidal wave of noise, which sets the tone for the rest of the show... the relentless energy that Stephen injects into his performance. He is in no way a conventional front man, and his onstage demeanor is just as I imagine it would have been 20 years ago. Stephen is free to leave the stage and stumble around, dragging the mike stand behind him and colliding with anyone foolish enough to stand too close. He curls up in a fetal ball or rolls around the floor, frequently getting tangled up in his microphone cable. The anger, fear and frustration that he exudes can be uncomfortable. Stephen looks genuinely tormented and I believe this is his way of dealing with traumatic events in his life. I have not seen a performance this cathartic since Michael Gira fronting Swans. As the final song, "Suicide", heads towards its ear-splitting climax, I begin to wonder what Stephen has in mind to finish the set. He picks up a bottle and I'm worried that he is going to do himself some serious harm, but instead he calmly leaves the room, while the noise inside gradually diminishes to a single piece of feedback. Much of the excitement here comes not from actions themselves but the tension of not knowing. It reminds me that there was a time when gigs were often confrontational, and dangerous for both audience and performer. Today's live shows are often very safe in comparison.
REBELLIOUS JUKEBOX

Crashing in with 'There Is No Floor' the band perfectly captured the noise assault of the early material and it was great to see that Stephen Lawrie had lost none of his venom in the preceding years. Clearly these songs still meant everything to him as he screamed them out whilst rolling around the floor. Fucking great. I look forward to new Telescopes material.
GIG JUNKIES

Back in 1989, seminal Burton-On-Trent five-piece The Telescopes released their groundbreaking debut long player Taste to an unsuspecting audience at the time still reeling from the triple whammy of Isn't Anything, Bug and Daydream Nation. Almost a year later, Welsh bootleg label Fierce Records put out a live recording of the band entitled Trade Mark Of Quality (much to The Telescopes' displeasure I hasten to add, due in no small part to their permission not being sought) which captured them at their venomous, incendiary best.

In the meantime the band's then official label, What Goes On, went bankrupt, leaving The Telescopes in limbo. However, the seeds were sown thanks to Taste and the batch of singles either side of its release, with the UK's answer to the noise rock seeping in from the States now firmly established as underground darlings, even if sections of the country's music media weren't convinced at the time.

Having inked a deal with Creation Records and released a self-titled follow-up to Taste that should have heralded their commercial breakthrough, the story of The Telescopes ground to a halt, with band members departing and the project embarking on an eight year hiatus. Returning in 2002 with yet another new sound and a rotating cast of players that saw only songwriting frontman Stephen Lawrie and guitarist Jo Doran remain, long player number three Third Wave was something of a triumph, not least due to its combination of psychedelia, folk and ambient melodrama culminating in the Elvis sampling 'A Good Place To Hide'. Subsequent releases would see Lawrie link up with Vibracathedral Orchestra's Bridget Hayden, the ensuing sounds taking an experimental diversion perhaps akin to Pete Kember's E.A.R. or Randall Nieman's Fuxa projects.

However, with the resurgence in modern bands citing The Telescopes as a major influence for their existence, not to mention time proving a great healer in terms of Taste being regarded as one of the lost classics of its era, it was perhaps inevitable that a revisit of the songs that established the band's name would ensue sooner or later.

The past being the past and all that, Stephen Lawrie's next move was to find a suitable cast of musicians to represent his songs in a live arena. Enter London's One Unique Signal, an outfit making considerable waves of their own on the capital's psychedelia and noise scenes, and before you could say, err, "play Taste in its entirety!", that's pretty much what was happening before our eyes and ears, as documented here.

Live. Aftertaste then is a recording of one such evening in Oxford's Cellar venue from February of last year, and from start to finish encapsulates the sheer intensity and dynamics of the band's unashamedly brutal performance. Capturing six songs in just over half an hour, the release of Live. Aftertaste (on heavy duty vinyl - what else?) certainly justifies Lawrie's decision to retread old ground. The ferocious stomp of 'There Is No Floor' gives way to the visceral thud of 'Sadness Pale' before the swamp rock duo of 'Threadbare' and 'Violence' render the career of many of The Telescopes' contemporaries pointless. Side two takes the octave level down a notch courtesy of 'Please Before You Go' before the looped explosion of 'Suicide' brings proceedings to a close, almost a quarter of an hour after the song's commencement. Vocally in fine fettle throughout, Lawrie emphasising every vowel and syllable as though it were his last, ably abetted by the five strong band caressing every shard of noise emanating from the speakers, Live. Aftertaste is a fitting statement highlighting the continued importance of Taste some 22 years after its initial release.

What's more, with an album's worth of new material on the way shortly, not to mention an impending slot at the Portishead curated I'll Be Your Mirror event in late July, The Telescopes' relevance in 2011 is all but assured.
DROWNED IN SOUND (8/10)

Onscreen the idea of The Telescopes playing their 1989 debut album in its entirety and releasing it reads like just another episode in the current series of indie's reformation/reissue plunderphonics. Instead of a retread of memories Live: Aftertaste is a hellish take on the original, front man Stephan Lawrie backed up with a bunch of young guns sets the original alight/alive and drinks the molotov. Hot-iron branding the original's hobnailed shoegaze with a Stoogean sense of violence, these tracks are imbued with the kind of wahwah screech and noisy blaze of Lawrie's recent collaborations with Vibracathedral Orchestra's Bridget Hayden. The songs are definitely still recognisable, but the muddy popnoise/noisepop of yesteryear is now a feral thing. The tempo has been stepped up, the songs screeching and blazing like demented and damaged aircraft as a counterpoint to Lawrie's time coarsened and angrier vocals. As the band take it down a few notches for the closing tracks, a deconstructed take on 'Suicide', the looping bass line is almost swallowed up by the wittering chatter of the audience. Soon enough though the implied threat of the pursuing bass becomes a explosive venue cull as The Telescopes culminate their 15minutes of tension with surges of bloody feedback and stabs of noise. The listener is left violently happy. Live: Aftertaste is available on vinyl through Static Charge in an edition of 500.
THE QUIETUS

Includes unlimited streaming of Live At Corsica Studios via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.