31/03/2009

I Saw This And Thought Of You



to purchase 'I SAW THIS AND THOUGHT OF YOU' visit the 4-4-2 music website or the Bandcamp page.


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released march 21, 2009

Between the release of the MORPHEME album and February 2008, the three original members of Telafonica slowly worked up a new batch of recordings with the aim of creating a new album. By the time Marcella and David left for London at the beginning of 2008, these had not yet quite been completed and it was uncertain as to whether they might be released at all. A few tracks were sent to different compilations (see Super Shiny Sydney, Seek and Destroy or Pop Songs For Edith Metzger) while others became individually released e-singles (see 4-4-2 Music e-Single of the Month Club, January 2009). The 7 tracks which finally became I Saw This And Thought Of You were chosen for their cohesion, then polished up with remixing and some final overdubs for release in early 2009. With many of the tracks still staples in the band's live sets, the exposure of these songs was felt to still be important, hence their final release.

The tracks explore familiar Telafonica territory of melancholy and movement, but with new textural depth via field recordings and grainier digital manipulation. Kaleidescopes of subtly perceptable action hide and play behind attention grabbing facades.

The disc comes with a poster in a box with all design and artwork by David and his Designed by Kind Permission.

Read the Cyclic Defrost review - Chris Downtown / Cyclic Defrost

"Sydney’s Telafonica combine indie and electronica perfectly" - Peter Hollo / Fbi Radio-Utility Fog

"It’s an album that seeks to confound our expectations of what might follow, and thus is always seemingly one step ahead." - Stu Buchanan / Discontent

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1. tape noise
2. blending the edges
3. this is the new thing
4. send away
5. requited love
6. item number
7. listening in for static

30/03/2009

Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by Destiny

my brother-in-law costa sent me a link to this clip - it's pretty great so i thought i might stick it up here. speaking of video clips, bec is working on a story board for a michel gondry inspired thing for the quest for love aboard the belafonte (we watched be kind rewind again on saturday). if anyone has ideas for any other clips, stick them up.

24/03/2009

a vs b

ok
what about 'dance in tune'?


yep - i'd still love to get whatever you've done to it to put into my computer - i know you said you haven't done much, but you've at least structured it a bit more, which will be the starting point we will work from. if you could possibly get those files to me before saturday, i can load them in and get them ready before we start. would it be easiest to send a usb stick over to your place via jenna to get them?

i also have the other song i was talking to you about on sunday. i will e-mail you a copy later tonight. i've now got an actual song for the music, and bec is going to play bass for it when we do it live. i need you to learn some singing and make up some guitar for it. i'm wanting the guitar to be a bit more rock than we've used so far, a bit more direct, a bit more like lava fuzz rather than gentle atmospherics and interjections. anyway, i'll mail it once i've recorded some rough singing.

i just had a chat to tim about our (telafonica) chemistry, musically and visually...
a couple of points, that i mostly agree with:

-the guitar and real instruments did contrast the laptop 'sound' a bit
................i will try going through the laptop again, that helps matching the laptop's synthetic sound...


not sure i'd agree with that completely. for all our joking, tim is definitely listening from the point of view of someone steeped in guitar/bass/drums music, so it sounds foreign to him to a fair degree. it's kind of like saying the white stripes don't sound right because there's no bass. well, there isn't, but that's the point. likewise the contrast between 'real' and synthetic that we have.

i have also been thinking that i would like to implement more live percussion.... (ESPECIALLY after seeing sherlock's daughter) i also think that it is a great source of energy.... that i am not finding all the time

yeah, i definitely agree with this one. i found, particularly with the set list we played on saturday, that it was difficult to generate energy. a few songs did - this is the new thing, one and one (which is why i kind of played it out a bit longer than usual, it finally felt like a bit of excitement. but, yes, banging things is always a good way of generating something. to that end, the new song mentioned above includes some tom tom banging, and a live percussion outro. so we're definitely thinking along the same lines there.

on the flipside, i thought saturday night was excellent in terms of singing, especially as i thought it was the first set we've played where eliza's voice was probably the dominant one instead of mine. and the harmonies were great all through - i've had a few people comment on that, especially the sherlock's daughter folk. i think it was just a pretty mellow set which, if considered from that point of view, was good. you don't go to a joanna newsom concert, for example, to dance in the aisles.

-(this is my one) its hard to communicate when we are all in a line, on stage... i don't really have any specific solutions but i think i would really like to be more of a unit on stage... eg/ i don't know what you are doing half the time... i only know what bec OR ellie is doing

yeah, i think that's a good point too. i think it comes from an initial desire not to create a heirarchy on stage. i also feel that we are behind too many stands, but i'm not quite sure how to overcome that without doing things side on. if you have any ideas about how to go about shifting that, declare them!

23/03/2009

Roxbury Hotel, Glebe, March 21, 2009

Did Telafonica have a good time on Saturday night? Of COURSE we did! We piled into the magical green spacia with two very good friends - Chris Box and Tim Engelbrecht - and had a jolly adventure until 2am.
The first delight was the Roxbury Room itself. What a great venue and the toilets were topnotch (unlike the Sly Fox which is missing a couple of doors in the ladies'). Very comfy with red theatrical curtains and a great atmosphere.

Delight number two was definitely "We Say Bamboulee". Telafonica&c became instant fans. Even before they played, we loved them when we saw them walk in with their autoharp. Their music is great and they bounce with energy and their joy for playing is very infectious!

While Shady Lane were performing some excellent music, Tim and Blake toddled off to the bar to have their first beer. Whatever the after effects may have been, both gentlemen were left with the feeling of having attained a higher level of masculinity. Hurrah.
We then trotted onto the stage with our growing menagerie of instrumentation. My Lemair Helvetia type writer made its debut and, with much prayer and sweat, I think I managed to keep the rhythm 99% of the time. We played some old old and some new new and were very sad to have disappointed We Say Bamboulee by not playing Nothing Ventured. Deepest Apologies. This is what we did play:

This is the New Thing
The Quest for Love Aboard the Belafonte
Don't Speak for Me
The Separation
Send Away
One and One


Last but not least were Sherlock's Daughter who were exponentially inspiring to us all. The music was wonderful and the performance was so free - everybody up and down and around all the instruments. Very magical.
We always round out the evening at our favourite chow spot Laziko's which is situated just before the portal which takes us back to the Western Suburbs. The food is always satisfying and the video clips incessantly serve up a selection of beach wear for inner city America which greatly amused the three lads (aged 18, 18 and 36) who were seated facing the screen.
It was lovely to see Leyne and Gene again. Very nice people in the neighbourhood! Thank you so much!

20/03/2009

Hey dudes, have you seen this? Do we know this person?! There should be a link here but when I paste it it just pastes it under the post - why computer why??? Can anyone see the link or explain why it won't paste into my post?! It's a link to deepgoa.wordpress.com reveiw of morpheme, it's quite flattering! I think....

17/03/2009

lessons in time e.p. review

Beginnings with chance happenings, at hand materials, creation from nothing, minimal equipment (inbuilt iMac microphone), field recordings, simple folk guitar, the harmonic backings of his sister(?) Jenna, and heartfelt lyrical content delivered with a naïve intonation is where 17 year old Blake Wassell begins. You may only wonder if before this age he has any knowledge of chance operation speculation, exposure to Steve Reich, the I Ching or even Edmund Husserl to arrive at this point yet I suspect he arrived there without any overt guides. Yet arrived he has with tracks such as Light is Sweet, whose easy and obvious virtue strums it’s lullaby to the ear. Even the youth in the packaging, notation paper, home sewn and printed in a stroke of whimsy is demonstrative of early exploration.

It is that Wassell has arrived to areas of music, environmental recordings, the creation of music from found sounds, that reside in high art domain without artifice and combined them with a folk sensibility. Without cluttered knowledge impeding direct communication, the track How very good this feeling is with its adjoiner, ‘understanding honesty’ is a clear summation of the direction to expect and be rewarded from listening to Lessons in Time now and in the future. A good deal of voice training could be brought to bear to improve his technique, but here the absence suits the mood of the piece as an aesthetic entity. It would seem that the mastering of Adrian Elmer has brought it a greater sonic depth without disturbing the simplicity of the beginnings of talent.

Innerversitysound
Cyclic Defrost
March 2009

http://www.cyclicdefrost.com/blog/?p=2975

13/03/2009

christmas in march

i just got sent an e-mail about a review that's just gone up for the christmas ep. you can see the actual thing here.

it goes like this:

++++++++++

Australian record- and Netlabel 4-4-2 Music released a wonderful compilation in December 2008 I only stumbled about now. As the weather in Northern Germany is exactly like it normally is on Christmas Eve 'round here, maybe a review makes sense. "A Whale in the Manger" brings together six artists and their interpretation of Christmas carols.

Actually, this compilation is only four songs and one musical collective:

Sydney-based Telafonica start with their version of "Angels We Have Heard On High". Absolutely intriguing, the band contrasts their coldish Trip Hop / Electronica sound with the heavenly "Gloria, in excelsis Deo" hookline of the traditional carol. Wonderful voices (Magill/ Elmer), wonderful trumpets.

Second is Telafonica songstress Eliza Magill. Her version of "Joy to the World" is far more traditional, but nonetheless skilful and beautiful. In duet with the male vocals (Adrian Elmer), the whole version sounds like a light-hearted version of Low (who must be names when it comes to Christmas carols of course). Fully acoustic, intimate recording, a heartbreaker.

The Lessons in Time hails from New South Wales and deliver the lopsided part of this compilation. Pretentious on first listen, a revelation at repeated performance! Blake Wassell, the lad behind the moniker, delivers an emotional lo-fi version of "O Holy Night" and raises the hymnal potential of the original to higher power. The Australian Liger? Oh, he plays in Telafonica as well!

Eventually, Telafonica join for a last hymnal. "Good News (Sing for Joy)" I wasn't able to identify properly, but who cares? Trip Hop and electronic music-influenced Popmusic, only the female vocals fit the concept better.

Thank heavens to nethymnal.org for the spiritual guidance!

+++++++++++++++

not quite sure how nethymnal related to it (well, the lyrics to the traditional ones are there, i guess), but anyway!

soundclash

we've been pointed in the direction of a new grant that the australia council has. it's called soundclash. we've been toying around with ideas of what we might be able to do to present to them in an application. having a set project/s in mind, i think, will probably be important for the proposal process (so i've been told...). blake has got an idea for a specific music making thing which he's putting together. i've also been thinking, especially on reading through the requirements (http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/grants/grants/soundclash_-_music) that something which is kind of forward thinking in its use of technologies might be a good thing as well, something to set us apart from asking for money for the traditional things. i think that is very much in the spirit of this particular grant.

i've been thinking that something to do with emerging technologies, particularly in terms of distribution models for recordings, would be a good thing to get thinking about. what is the concept of an 'album' in the state of play at the moment, for example? i'm wondering if dave, steve or dave maybe had some insight into ideas they'd like to explore, which we could put into the context of a telafonica project? something that really blurs the lines between music and design/art/film distribution etc? i think we've already got the type of music that fits the parameters they've established quite well - are there any ideas to really take it to new places, though?

we've got until april 20 to get a fully formed proposal together.

10/03/2009

seen @ ween keen

oh, will the puns ever end?




photos courtesy of matt curley (mc halloween).

sound quality

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/soundquality/stories/2009/2496082.htm

a couple of familiar names in the playlist. the show goes to air at 11:20pm this friday night, and can then be streamed for 4 weeks after that from http://www.abc.net.au/rn/soundquality/default.htm.

08/03/2009

Ween Keen March 7

Well, I don't know if we're any more "Ween Keen" than we were yesterday but Telafonica had a lot of fun playing "So Many People in the Neighbourhood" and "Voodoo Lady" at the Gaelic Theatre in the wee-est hours of this morning. We trekked on in with the added pleasure of having Cherry along (who has now mastered the art of opening a bottle of Chinotto with her car keys only to be disappointed by the taste) at 11 pm. All the Mardi Gras crowd was exiting the city and Telafonica stepped into the void. It was a small Ween Keen crowd and it was the end of a marathon and we totally did not fit the rock heavy bill of all the other bands. However, DJ Halloween said that we were the best dressed band - Adrian in his Jackson Pollock suit, Ellie in her red dress and viking hat, me in my fairy costume and wings and Blake in his lovely blue cricket cap. We had a lot of fun - I have to say that I am exceedingly proud of Adrian's very excellent reconstructions of the songs - especially "So Many People in the Neighbourhood" which was a jumble of exceedingly famous samples from The Carpenters to the Beatles and others of which I am utterly ignorant. It was a real pleasure to meet Layne, the organiser. Thank you for our souvenir dog tags! Oh and thank you to the dude who played spoons with us on VooDoo Lady.
Am becoming increasingly aware in various audiences that increase in alcohol consumption does not equal wit or even stamina to party.

david cain-definition of golden age

"One thing about any definition of a golden age, for me, is that it is the point where the desires of the creator are greater than the technology which is available. There comes a moment when the technology gets closer and closer to the imagination/creativity of the writer. In the end if you're not careful it overtakes and suddenly, serendipity, which before was from your own sweat and blood, comes by and says, "If I press one of these 397 buttons on this synthesizer maybe I'll get something out of it." Now at that moment, the machinery is driving the creativity and the creativity is not driving the machinery. Maybe thats where the golden age stops…."
 
-David Cain (BBC Radiophonic Composer 1967-73)

05/03/2009

upstarts comedown

since nobody ended up writing anything about the last show at the sando, i figured i'd jump in and write out somthing for last night's spectrum show here. first, the set list so i remember it when i get around to filling out apra forms:

an invitation
but i lose myself
the quest for love aboard the belafonte
for the manifesto dub
this is the new thing
nothing ventured
the separation


i thought it was a fairly bizarre bill for us to be included on. i quite enjoyed the other two bands, but i don't know that everything really went together. i particularly enjoyed marquee who's shoegaze stuff reminded me very much of what i used to do in my youth. i was impressed by their drummer, who avoided the temptation that drummers in that type of band fall into of covering the music with a wash of cymbal white noise. when they do that, you can't hear the intricacies of what the guitars are doing, because it all happens in the same part of the sound spectrum. but he only used his cymbals to accentuate, not to create noise, and the clarity because of it was great. i thought they could do with more vocal melodicism to go with the guitar melodicism, but that criticism aside, i really liked them. particles were bleach-era nirvana (even down to the guitarist/singer's dress aesthetic - completely anachronistic for 2009, but quietly nostalgic for myself), which i've always had a soft spot for (and another throw-back to my youth - am i so old that the sounds of my youth are no longer part of the continuum so are able to be brought back and sound 'new'?). i bought their demo cd ($2 !) and it's actually really well recorded and the songs come across really well.

as for our set, it was loud, which made singing difficult (well, hearing the singing, to be more specific) but, otherwise, i thought we did reasonably well. there weren't any glaring issues. manifesto was excellent - proved we could make as much noise as any guitar/drum band, which we kind of needed to do in the context of last night. the new arrangement for the separation is infinitely better, once we get the autoharp back to accentuate where it does i think it will be close to complete.

02/03/2009

The Demise of Cinnamon Sugar

I've finally thought of a new and improved title for the Cinnamon Sugar song! Hooray. Now, I know you're all sitting next to me at the moment, but I thought I should make it official for our fans.

The new title is...

THE QUEST FOR LOVE ABOARD THE BELAFONTE.

We can call it Belafonte for short. The most excellent new name was obviously inspired by the completely super film The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. Please watch it and supprt Wes Anderson if you haven't yet seen it.

For our Telafonica fan club members, please be advised that the official Telafonica uniform will include little red beanies. Topless for women, speedos for men.