Telepathe - Dance Mother

If anything, an 80s revival will always be gut wrenchingly disturbing. Leg warmers did not work the first time round, so why on earth would anyone think they could make a second? It’s clear that the most painful area in which to witness the comeback is fashion. On the music side of things, one feels not so much weirded out, but rather fascinated.

Telepathe was originally formed by Brooklyn ladies Busy Gangnes and Shahin Motia, but the line up has wavered and transformed to finally give us Busy and Melissa Livaudais. The band was created as a side project for the girls who were already part of no wave prog punk outfits. The release in 2006 of their ‘Farewell Forest’ EP and the ‘Sinister Militia’ 12” generated interest around the duo who brought a neo-hip hop experimental sound to the table. Their return in 2008 with ‘Chrome’s On It’, produced by Don Caballero’s Eric Emm, only pushed them higher as the track became a firm favourite on the London cool kids scene.

Debut album ‘Dance Mother’ recalls The Cocteau Twins, with a similar style of heart felt vox, almost beat poetry, laying softly over a proggy mix of drones and tweaks. Not the most attractive of descriptions, we’re sure, but on playing the record, the first track instantly pulls you in. It is new, it is different, it’s something else. The fact that TV On The Radio’s Dave Sitek produced the whole thing explains the prog vibe, although as we already know, the girls came from such a sound background. Opening track ‘So Fine’ gets the tempo going, moving you, whether you want to be moved or not. This leads us on to the album’s recording of 2008 underground smash ‘Chrome’s On It’. Now full kudos to Sitek for producing such an interesting and good record, but maybe he could have asked Emm for his version. The track, whilst still using that infectious drum machine and haunting vocals, doesn’t have the same punch as its predecessor. But let’s not let this lower the general standard of Telepathe’s debut. The hip hop vocals are strong on tracks such as ‘Devil’s Trident’ and ‘Lights Go Down’, the voices sweet over the softer chords of ‘In Your Line’ and ‘Can’t Stand It’. The album draws to a close with epic track ‘Trilogy…’, a masterpiece in seven minutes.

Telepathe have succeeded in producing a mother of a dance record. So follow the trend and go get it.