I Don’t Buy Records In Your Shop Now I Tape Them All | A Mixtape By Telafonica

April 14th, 2010 Stu

Telafonica are a Sydney band that operate more like an evolving, fluid collective rather that a rigid formation of players. Their original line-up has filtered into the diaspora, with core Australian members morphing into a four-piece that explore a long terrain, bordered by melodic pop on one side and experimental electronica on the other. Although the palate is broad, the influences are not always evident – hence, when Adrian from Telafonica suggested dropping a mixtape of tracks that acted as touch-points for the creation of their most recent album “Love On the Second Stair”, it was impossible to resist. Whilst many bands shroud themselves in unnecessary mystique, Telafonica take the opposite approach – here, by revealing their influences in such direct terms, and also at their web site, where work-in-progress conversations between members are carried out in the public domain. Stuart Buchanan

“In December of 2008, the Australian based members of Telafonica decided to specifically focus on the creation of a new album. They already had a handful of tracks in various stages of development that they had been playing in their live shows but were looking to see how to draw all these together, as well as create some new songs. One of the tactics used to give focus was the creation of half hour inspiration ‘mixtapes’ on CD to be shared around. In the end, only Blake and Adrian ended up compiling whole mixtapes, though Rebecca and Eliza contributed other tracks themselves as inspiration for specific Telafonica songs.

“The album was created and released in November of 2009 as ‘Love On The Second Stair’. This mixtape, developed especially for the Discontent blog, combines some of the tracks that were on the initial inspiration discs, along with other inspirations that came to the fore in the process of making the album, as well as some tracks from which samples were directly taken and used within the music that formed the finished album.

“There is obviously a wide range of things to be heard, from the most mainstream of mainstream to obscure side channels in the history of music. These reflect Telafonica’s bower bird approach to music construction, begging, borrowing and stealing from any and everywhere in order to compile their own postmodern, post-retro pop.

“In this mix, where a track appears in full, it has been either already made available by the original artists on the internet for free, or specific permission has been gained from the original artists to include their work. Obviously, a number of the tracks have not been made available for free and permission would be difficult (and costly) to secure. In those cases, the tracks have been used in a traditional sampling sense, with only very brief snippets occurring, and are generally processed in some manner.” Telafonica

DOWNLOAD: I Don’t Buy Records In Your Shop Now I Tape Them All | A Mixtape By Telafonica (69.7MB)

(nomo – all the stars)
(adam and the ants – kick)
(parts & labor – satellites)
(the martini bros – dance like it is o.k. (dj koze & the tease remix))
(the flying lizards – money (that’s what i want))
1. beem – RER
(the beatles – sgt pepper’s lonely hearts club band reprise)
2. balun – a surprise
3. whitewash – feather
(sigur ros – festival)
4. slareffenklang – you win
(bow wow wow – c30, c60, c90, go!)
(the jam – that’s entertainment)
5. ghoul – swimming pool
6. sufjan stevens – sister winter
7. hamilton yarns – newhaven to dieppe
8. go! team – junior kickstart
(the smashing pumpkins – tonight, tonight)
9. parades – exodus (telafonica treble remix)
10. underlapper – choking ibis

IMAGE: Cover Design by Telafonica

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Telafonica | Laughing At Trees

April 25th, 2009 Stu

01AFA8A7-F3A4-4F3A-BE44-7B0B57BBDEAA.jpg

As a collective of seven permanent members and an ecosystem of many more, the audio and visual output of Sydney’s Telafonica is hard to keep track of. That said, the seemingly endless sprawl of creativity is ensuring that roots are burrowed deep into the ground beneath the feet of Sydney, and have thus become embedded in the very cultural fabric of the city.

The Telefonica catalogue dates as far back as 2001, with the release of ‘Dos’ – a split release covering one collection of beats, another of ambience and “dark d&b”. Around this time, Telafonica also appeared on a Clan Analogue compilation (‘Cognition 4 – Solid Gold‘) – and comparing their ambitions with that of the seminal Australian electronic collective would seem to hold safe and true.

Embedded around the founding duo of designer David Hughes and artist Adrian Elmer, Telafonica’s intention to mix the old with the new (or rather “cutting edge technologies” with “traditional techniques and aesthetics”) is borne out in their latest release, “I Saw This And Thought Of You”. The seven tracker blends clipped, minimal 4-4, 8-bit melodies, rough-hued dubstep and five-o’clock shadow electro – all liberally sprinkled with vocals that recall a short flight from early 80s post-punk or even that of old school Sydney electronic act, Severed Heads. It’s an album that seeks to confound our expectations of what might follow, and thus is always seemingly one step ahead.

The backstory of Telafonica is well documented on their label site 4-4-2 and much of their early material is made available for download at archive.org. As if that wasn’t considerate enough (especially in such wallet-diminished times), their free ‘Single Of The Month’ series on 4-4-2 is another eclectic godsend that deposits regular acts of electronic kindness. The cuts below are culled from a recent free Telefonica release described by the band as “two tracks of boom blip blip”.

The concept of sharing however goes much deeper – their Virb site was last year used as a space in which band members posted and traded demos of new material, all freely available for all to witness. The Telafonica blog is also just as much about us as it is about them – new tracks and articles as posted along side messages to one another such as “i appear to have misplaced the lyrics for time to move the nest. can you put them up here, blake, so i know where to find them?”. The very next day, Blake dutifully obliged.

Telafonica – Laughing At Trees | mp3

Telafonica – Tokyo Disco Bell (Luminarsi Version) | mp3

more | telafonica.blogspot.com

img | roujo

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