 "Photo: Photo courtesy of IAMSOUND Records")
With "Dance Mother", Telepathe pulled a 180 in accessibility, while simultaneously retaining the haunting echoes of their noisier work.
Telepathe's first full length release "Dance Mother" shows a band who have grown drastically. I mean real drastically, like when Spock went through puberty super fast in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
Telepathe's 2007 "12" single, "Sinister Militia," was an eerie mix of drones, delay, and ambient drumming, the kind of thing casual music listeners generally don't get down with.
Normally, when a band goes from avant-electronic to something vaguely danceable (dancing to this would probably be more like a rhythmic shuffle) the fan base feels betrayed and cries of 'sell out' follow shortly after.
But Telepathe keeps it just weird enough to work, and as the album plays out the synthesized notes bleeding out over the vocals, the layers of echoes pile up, and the swirling sound-scape realizes much of Telepathe's earlier appeal.
"Dance Mother" doesn't trade underground credibility for vain hopes of mainstream success; it pulls together "Sinister Militia's" scattered, amateur experimentalism into a sleeker, more cohesive package.
Telepathe isn't the first of its ilk to step in this direction either. The last few years have seen many members of Brooklyn's lysergic-loop station noise scene approach what could be generally recognizable as music.
Gang Gang Dance's last album veered away from neon gypsy freak out of "God's Money," at times sounding like something from the UK dubstep scene. Black Dice, whose twisted techno sounds like an operating system crashing on Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), have come a long way from their early punch-you-in-the-face Providence hardcore. Animal Collective traded in their sparse, dissonant drum circle jams in order to become one of the biggest names in indie-rock.
Though Telepathe has yet to reach a broader level of appeal and acclaim, "Dance Mother" sees them moving in the right direction. The soft feminine vocals hover above the shimmering synthesizers and jagged, pulsing drum beats, keep everything orderly and in line.
When a band starts off as far into the fringe as Telepathe did, a softening of the edges is more indicative of growth than it is a yearning for commercial viability. "Dance Mother" finds Telepathe poised on the precipice, blushing giddily after a successful flirtation with song structure and melody.
They've matured quite a bit, but it's going to take a third album to reach maximum ripeness.
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