For 30 years, The Telescopes have existed on the outskirts of the U.K. pop scene, in a host of different forms. Founded by primary member Stephen Lawrie in 1987 as a way to channel his love for such American underground icons like 13th Floor Elevators, The Velvet Underground, and Suicide, the band has since inhabited the worlds of noise, shoegaze, Britpop, and space rock without disappearing too far into any one of them. Rather, Lawrie has preferred to stitch all of them together into a kind of dreamcoat that’s wholly unique. Their eponymous second LP, released on Creation Records in 1992, is a stronger Salvo to Britpop than the records unveiled by Pulp or The Charlatans that year. On their decade-in-the-making follow-up Third Wave, Lawrie immersed himself in jazz and IDM to craft a fitting testament to the endless possibilities for the rock band format in a Kid A afterworld.
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Since signing with Hamburg, Germany indie imprint Tapete Records in 2015, Lawrie has returned to his roots in noise and space, building on the sound of the scene he helped spawn, with nods to early Primal Scream and Spacemen 3, and then taking it down darker, more abstract musical paths. For his second Tapete full-length release, As Light Return Lawrie is celebrating three decades in music by tangling up reverb, delay, and echo into some of the most impossible knots he’s crafted yet. It’s a dizzying five-song journey that crescendos with epic 14-minute closer “Handful of Ashes,” where his feedback reaches raga-like levels of abandon thanks to the improvisational craft of his backing group, St Deluxe.
In celebration of the 30th anniversary of The Telescopes,here is the evolution of his underrated and remarkable outfit, whose time to be recognized as one of the quintessential architects of the British experimental rock movement is long overdue.
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The Telescopes were among the most innovative and challenging yet successful artists in Creation Records‘ “middle period”, a leading part of the wave of sonic experimenters who included Spacemen 3, My Bloody Valentine, Spectrum and Spiritualized. Towards the end of their time with Creation, they made their most fully realized album yet, “#’ (untitled second). This is the first time this great psychedelic album is being released in the US, and it comes with 3 bonus tracks. “The songs are built on acoustic guitars, then the tricked-out electric guitars are laid on top and garnished with bongos, organs, pianos, and all sorts of classic instruments. Stephen Lawrie’s vocals are restrained and semi-emotional and female backing vocals add a touch of sweetness
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