30/05/2009

sorry to be such a persistent nag

but my guitar in the separation is a tad behind the beat

re: smells like rain... i am still not totally convinced by my voice in there, but i guess a better judgement can be made after we record it better

re: i can't make you love me... i think the ending is a little too far drawn out and bland. if the ending is to remain that long, i think there needs to be more dynamic, melodic, rhythmic changes and accents

re: time to move the nest... are you and bec going to sing in it still? i really like what the voices of eliza and myself sound like together in that song... but it will be even better if you and bec sing in it, i think.

those are my main thoughts on the new album demos.

27/05/2009

mixtapes

i've been meaning to put these up for months but have never got around to it - david asked if they were anywhere downloadable online? so here they are, the 2 mixtapes that blake and i made just before christmas. the idea was that they'd be an indication of the kind of sounds we were keen to explore with our new recordings. listening back to them now, with many of those recordings nearing completion, i'm impressed at how much they do actually reflect these particular mixes.

anyway, blake's mix can be downloaded here. the tracklisting and blake's explanations can be found here.

my mix can be downloaded here and the tracklisting/explanation can be found here.

i'll also add the links to the original posts and maybe create a new category somewhere down one of the sidebars so they're always around.

oh my

i stumbled across this artist today and his work really appealed to me. it made me think about the kind of music i would like to make alongside that story/soundtrack idea that i have talked to you about, rebecca and adrian.

25/05/2009

lastfm group

i've set up a group on lastfm called 'telafonica members'. if we are all part of the group, then it will generate group charts for what we listen to each week, which i thought might be nice to either add to or more probably replace our individual charts which are currently listed down on the right hand column. in order to join the group, you'll need to log in to your lastfm account, go to the 'groups' section, run a search for 'telafonica members' then apply to join that group. then i'll approve it and it will all go ahead (we have to use the application process in order to make it a closed group). i've been thinking it might be nice to start up a completely open group for anyone wishing to be associated with us and having a chart of the listening habits of that entire group too. actually, i just might go and set that up now. i'll just call it 'telafonica', so go join that one too (though you won't need to apply as it will be completely open to anyone).

24/05/2009

i want candy

So what day are we having a practice this week for Candy's? Or did we decide that already? I can't remember.

Anyway, whenever that is, I can show you the vaguely jazzy chord stuff I have for Time to Move the Nest. This is anticipatory, because I haven't come up with anything yet. But it'll come.

Also, sometime this week can I come over and record some Karoshi-related vocals in The Orange Studio?

23/05/2009

20th April, 2009




for more details on the 20th Project visit Cabinet Pin.
_________________________________
released april, 2009

the 20th april was a pretty hectic day - it was also the submission deadline for the australia council's soundclash grant, so i was frantically working on that, meaning this track didn't get developed anywhere near as far as i'd hoped it might. blake and i started out by agreeing on a key and a tempo and started working separately. after a little while blake e-mailed me the main guitar riff and i had been working on the rhythm track. with the guitar riff setting up the mood, i played some piano and then worked with the lyrics bec had written. it all came together reasonably quickly. we had hoped to add some stuff with our new toy glockenspiel and other things but, in the end, the time just wasn't there. so here it is, as is. it might get worked on in the future.

as to the actual 20th CD-R that came about from everyone else's contributions, the track listing looks like this:

1. COMMUNITY MUSK - A Song For Your Mixtape
2. BAGLEY - 111111111111
3. RAINBOAT - Dark Force
4. TELAFONICA Monday Wednesday Sunday
5. MERANKORII A Danca das Rosas
6. THE LOST EYES Makin' This House a Home
7. VLAYMAN Liquor is Quicker
8. CLOUDY - MOWE pardner
9. 44HERTZ - Narcissists Mirror
10. RYAN OF NERF Jupiter (is fucking cool)
11. LOVELETTING - They All Say
12. FRONTEIRS IN PHOTOGRAPHY - That Way Is This Way
13. THE DESKS - All
14. 44HERTZ - Massive
15. FISHEADS OF FUN - Hey!



22/05/2009

wreckovery dj set no.1

i finally took the plunge and worked out how to beatmix full tracks with ableton live, and got two sets ready to play at wreckovery last sunday. so i thought i might upload the sets that i get ready/play, whether out in public, or just at home. in the end, i only ended up using the tracks from one of the lots i prepared, so that one is here ready now, but i'll actually have a play with the other and stick that up sometime as well. i'll also put a streaming player on the blog permanently at some stage. so....

this set is almost exclusively freely available netlabel tracks i've collected over the last year or so. i also stuck in a brand new luminarsi track which he posted to some friends just last week. all are quite minimal which then means quite a lot of layering can happen without too much clashing. for most of it there's at least 2 tracks playing at any one time. for that reason, i can't really give a track order (i brought different bits from different tracks in and out all the way through), but the actual tracks that appear are:

jumpel - quicken belts
grau - catacumbas del terror
edson byer - desconstrução (part 2)
floating mind - molekular travel
moog control - congo
luminarsi - three hundred and three
wolfgang raspe - housing the mind

netlabel minimalism (wreckovery 17.5.09) (right click to download - 48mb) or stream below.

el rocco's promo disc

i'm putting together a promo cd-r to send out to radio for our gig at el rocco's in a few weeks' time. i was thinking that it might be good to put one of our newer tracks on it. does anybody have any specific requests for what track we should put on it? i guess something radio friendly would be best. but they're all reasonably good in that respect. what do we think we should use to represent us at this point in time?

19/05/2009

more mum

found these over at fasterlouder.com taken by a photographer known as eila-movestil. a nice montage featuring chris box (and possibly tina ceza, but i'm not quite sure).



18/05/2009

swiftlove @ candy's apartment

Lunar Module - Get Low (Maxi Remix Single)



to purchase the GET LOW - Maxi Remix Single, head over to CDBaby.
________________________
released may, 2009

Lunar Module have been long time friends of Telafonica and when they asked if we'd be interested in doing a remix for their upcoming single, we jumped at the chance. Lunar Module work in synthpop mode, with a strong leaning towards early 80s stylings. The track they gave us was Get Low and duly sent us individual track files. Honing in on one section of the bass line, we re-recorded it with a dirty, lo-attack synth and then added some burbling 303s. Along with the dry as bones drums, that pretty much holds everything together under the pure pop melodies, until the original's main synth line is brought back in, heavily bitcrushed, towards the track's end.

The release features 8 tracks and over 40 minutes of music, including 3 versions of Lunar Module's best known track - Turn The Key - one of which is a wonderfully baggy remix by Bleepin' J Squawkins. A two minute sample of each track can be heard at the CDBaby website.

________________________

1. get low (album mix)
2. get low (extended mix)
3. get low (telafonica lo fi mix)
4. get low (electro mix)
5. get low (minimal mix)
6. turn the key (album mix)
7. turn the key (bleepin j squawkins madchester mix)
8. turn the key (original mix)

16/05/2009

Finders Keepers Market, May 15, 2009




Finders Keepers is a wonderful place to play (and to fill with enticing pieces of knick knackery).
Scott, the music coordinator, was very nice and so patient when Telafonica got lost aboard the Spacia on the way there. It was also a pleasure to be playing to a different kind of crowd.
Cherry Cooper was once again our faithful friend, roadie and photographer who, despite exhaustion, accompanied us and cheered us on. Mele-Katalina painted beautiful shades of pink and grey onto our skin (well, I painted myself accidently and quite suddenly found myself with two pitch black hands in the middle of the set). It was also fantastic to see Alex Jennings and Rebecca Shave - always so generous in helping us get our gear together and apart when they're around. The presence of Ant Banister of Lunar Module was a terrific surprise. Thanks so much lovely people!
Ellie's singing was perfect and Blake's guitar was at it's best. AJE and I did a bit of fumbling here and there but the response was good and we could see vendors and customers bobbing along to songs like Send Away and But I Lose Myself. That was very gratifying. We also brought out one of our new songs, "Cover", for the very first time.
There were a few suspicions confirmed last night.
1: Revamped train sheds are beautiful spaces to inhabit.
2: An adult-sized pink tutu and a top hat on stage makes for great entertainment even without music. (Am very jealous of Ellie now)
3: A surprise immersion in paint, although very entertaining, will eliminate all useful brain function from immersed band member.
4: It IS Chris Box's fault that the midi controller and the computer collapse in But I Lose Myself - in his absence there was no hitch! : )
5: The Ellie and Blake Show never fails to entertain.

The Set List was as follows:
An Invitation
Cover
Send Away
Nothing Ventured
Smells Like Rain
But I Lose Myself
The Quest for Love Aboard the Belafonte
Don't Speak for Me
The Separation

Photos by Cherry Cooper

15/05/2009

swiftlove

how would everybody feel about playing swiftlove at candy's apartment (the one next door to the world bar) on friday, may 29? one of the bands who was booked to play has pulled out, and the booker sent me a message to ask if we would like to step in. i told him i'd get back to him later tonight (after we get home) so let me know either here or tonight.

el rocco's

14/05/2009

remote laptop

i don't get it! no matter what i try to do, i can't get the laptop to crash using those synth sounds in but i lose myself or the belafonte when i'm playing around trying to sort the problem, but as soon as we get on stage, it always crashes!!! it's driving me insane. i've spent so many hours trying to sort it out.....

13/05/2009

twitter

so you may have noticed that i've added a twitter thing on the blog. i went and signed up for twitter - no idea of it's actual effectiveness for anything other than taking up time, but i figured that between 7 or 8 people, if we each looked at it once a week, a collective presence will be made. you can find our twitter page at http://twitter.com/telafonica.

one of the blogs i regularly read is an excellent one called 'new music strategies'. it's by a new zealander based in england and is quite good at throwing up ideas into the brave new world of the music business this side of the invention of filesharing. a recent article was about twitter. read it here. if you follow the links to some of the other articles about twitter, they talk about how a band my use twitter usefully.

so anyway, it's there - use it if you like. i'll e-mail everyone the login details.

12/05/2009

townes van zandt

eliza, have you had a chance to go through those townes van zandt songs and see which you think best? we need to let the label know by tomorrow which we're choosing.

we say thom yorke

Did anyone happen to catch We Say Bamboulee on fbi yesterday? They were live in the studio from 8-9pm. I forgot at the last minute and only caught the last ten minutes, but they sounded so good! You couldn't tell they were doing it live, crammed into the thing. Anyway, they finished off by saying that they had a collective band man-crush on Tanya from Sherlock's Daughter - I agree completely, only it's more of a girl-crush, obviously - and it occurred to me that Telafonica should decide who our official other-artist crushes are. A challenge! Not only are we co-ed, but Adrian probably won't let Chris Martin be on the list. Well, I wouldn't mind if he weren't on it. Thom Yorke, however...

11/05/2009

The Quest for Love Aboard the Belafonte

i am definitely very pleased with the song that our numerous ideas have contributed to
a couple of thoughts for polishing...
-vocals of bec, adrian and myself for the 'if love...' phrase (it does not have to be in every place that the phrase is sung...)
-perhaps the inclusion of some of my guitar parts in the instrumental/last chorus
-before the second chorus, there is a rather empty section... i reckon that there is space for a simple melody played on a glockenspiel perhaps... or even of our voices singing the basic melodic ideas of the chorus.
-and the recording of the typewrite-ing of course!

thoughts?

(i finished an essay today)

10/05/2009

Mum @ The World Bar, 8.5.2009





(Thanks to Cherry for taking the photos)

I know I say it at the beginning of every review but it really is a matter of fact that Telafonica have fun wherever we go and Friday night was no exception. We had our treasure chest of instruments, had our Spacia, had our Chris Box and our Cherry Cooper and, as coined by Mr C. Box, we had another of our favourite episodes from "The Ellie and Blake Show".
We love the cosy cave atmosphere of Mum so we were quite excited to be back. The place was packed. Unfortunately, the majority of the crowd were 18 year old musically immune chicks-on-parade who confirmed my personal suspicions that feminism was a negligible solution to the plight of the female sex. I'd also like to tell the girl in the third toilet cubicle whose three friends were comforting her after being dumped by some guy that there is a deep joy to be found that would satisfy her need to be cherished. But not here. And definitely not by sculling spirits out of the spout of a tea pot which seemed to be an 18 year-old girl ritual around the place.
Although we weren't inspired by the other music creations that we heard and couldn't stay to hear the whole of Brand New Math (who were very lovely people) we did rather enjoy the DJ-ing which threw in some Beatles and Plastic Bertrand.
We had a ball playing our set and I really enjoyed the surreal experience of playing bass for the first time (well not the very first, but, you know, live). AJE was red hot on the floor tom at the opening of the set. Ellie's vocals, as always, were transcendent. Blake's guitar is always delightful and his singing was wonderful, even though his mike's position caused him to face the wall at the side of the stage (ultra cosy sized stage if your line-up is a bit quirky like ours).
All hail to the group of wonderful women who turned up with Tina Ceza - super funky dancer that she is. It was so wonderful to have a crowd of friends down the front row to make us feel loved and appreciated.
I must say that we were sad that Tim Engelbrecht didn't come at the last minute as there was no more room in the Spacia. I only wish that we had a bigger bus so that no Telafonicite would be left behind. So sorry Tim!
Have to say that it was really wonderful to meet the sound guy (so sorry we didn't find out your name - you know how it is - loud music, drunk teenagers - hard to hear), DJ Mick Jones and Julian from Meow Music, a super nice guy who mans the behind the scenes every Friday night.
Well, we packed up so late that nobody wanted to stop at our favourite midnight snack place, LaZiko's. I do believe we actually made some money this time!

In case you're curious, the set list was:
I Can't Make You Love Me
Smells Like Rain
But I Lose Myself
Quest for Love aboard the Belafonte
Nothing Ventured
The Separation Prepared this for another Marriage

09/05/2009

photos, sets and practice

i've asked sam nagle if she would do some photos of us and she's very keen. she suggested coming along one night we're rehearsing to take photos and then she'll take them home and play around with them. she's doing some pretty great stuff with faces at the moment, so they should look excellent.

which also reminds me - we have a one hour set to play next friday. set list suggestions and a rehearsal time? my opening gambits will be that we do everything we did last night as a starting point. and we're free monday, tuesday (if it's after interviews like last week) and thursday if necessary, though would probably prefer not to do it then.

07/05/2009

lost plots

the fine folk at for the sake of the song have asked if we could let them know what song we're going to do for the townes van zandt tribute album by thursday of next week. have you had a chance to listen to the suggestions, eliza?

blake, i understand tim has been talking to you about a new mixer he's getting, and you're thinking of doing likewise? the one he's getting would also be perfect to take out live as it's got the exact number of mic inputs we need (4) but is much smaller than our current one. so if you are thinking of getting a mixer, think hard about that one!

eliza - we have space for cherry tomorrow night.

04/05/2009

a few pieces of random news

my radio alarm went off this morning. a melancholy voice was intoning, 'light is sweet, and it pleases my eyes to see the sun'. 'twas slightly surreal. especially as how i'm such a morning person.

for the sake of the song sent a myspace friend request. i sent back a message asking if they'd be interested in us covering something for the townes van zandt compilation. they were, so we'll be joining lessons in time there.

the venue we're playing at on june 11 (el rocco's) has a grand piano on stage. we can use it.

telafonique, je t'aime

I've been playing around with the mini piano accordion this week - takes a bit of getting used to, and I'm still quite dreadful at it. Anyway, I've come up a sort of melancholic melodic line, with some sparse piano accompaniment, which I imagine would be at the beginning and end of a song, and quite separate from the main part of the song. I don't know if this could be the 'slopecard maniac/space cowboy/et cetera' song, but anything's possible. Anyway, just thought I'd let you know that I've finally started one. I might play it for you tomorrow evening. What time's practice?

02/05/2009

facebook

so i've set up a facebook page for the band which, i just found out the other day, is different from a telafonica facebook group. anyway, it can be found at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Telafonica/77243258378?v=wall&viewas=658499746. i've just added everyone as an admin and i figured that some of you spend far more time on facebook than i do, so go to town with it. stick whatever you think is relevant there. i'll add some gig notices etc in the near future.