The Telescopes
The Telescopes present ‘Silent Water’, the second single from their ‘Stone Tape’ album, forthcoming via Rome-based label Yard Press. They just premiered this track via Paste Magazine, coming hot on the trail of ‘The Desert In Your Heart’, the lead track from their new long-play. and follows their ninth album ‘As Light Return’, released in July of this year via Tapete Records.
The Telescopes’ new six-track offering inaugurates Yard Press’ new series of record productions. Curated by Giandomenico Carpentieri, this endeavor is rooted in the desire to create albums that are developed in close collaboration with the artists involved. The starting point is to create a concept album specially designed for Yard Press, within a free environment without creative limits, where artists can pursue the most experimental and conceptual projects.
‘Stone Tape’ is a concept album inspired by the “Stone Tape Theory”, theorized by Thomas Charles Lethbridge in 1961. The archaeologist, parapsychologist and explorer developed the idea that inanimate materials can absorb energy from living beings, and that this mental electrical energy, released during emotional or traumatic events, could somehow be “stored” in such materials and “reproduced” under certain conditions.
Not long after touring with Spacemen 3, Primal Scream and The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Telescopes were headlining tours themselves with support from the likes of Slowdive, Ride, The Cranes, Bleach, Bark Psychosis and Whipping Boy. The band eventually transitioned from their noise origins towards a more brooding psychedelic sound. Following the release of their second album in 1992, Lawrie put the group on hold, returning in 2002 with a renewed vigour. The late great John Peel, for whom they recorded two sessions, heralded their return and championed their ‘Third Wave’ album, exclaiming “The Telescopes have resurfaced and I am amazed and glad they are still practicing their mysterious art”.A string of releases followed. The Wire magazine described them as having “a very real and crazy originality that carries fat tons of wallop”. The NME again found them ‘in another universe altogether, incredible”. Julian Cope championed two of their releases on his Head Heritage site, referring to their “suspended-in-space magnificence”.
In 2011, Portishead invited them to play the first ever ATP festival in London. The next year, The Black Angels / Reverberation Appreciation Society invited them to the Austin Psych Fest. 2014 brought their seventh release ‘HARM’ on Neon Sigh, involving members of LSD & The Search For God and BJM, which Drowned In Sound called “a visceral exercise in harshly constructed noise”.
The Telescopes then released two critically acclaimed albums through Tapete Records – ‘Hidden Fields’ and ‘As Light Return’, offering some of the band’s most crucial listening so far. Following pulverising performances at both Manchester and Liverpool Psych festivals this year, The Telescopes are set to release their tenth album in November on Yard Press.
TRACK LIST
06 Dead Inside
CREDITS
Written, produced, arranged and played by Stephen Lawrie
Album photography by Achille Filipponi
Series curated by Giandomenico Carpentieri
Series executive production by Leonardo Mancini
TOUR DATES
Nov. 6 Pamplona, Spain – Nebula Bar
Nov. 17 Copenhagen, Denmark – Venue TBA
The Telescopes – Silent Water
The Telescopes – The Desert In Your Heart
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Band location – Burton-upon-Trent, England
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