Telefon Tel Aviv - Soft half-light

Telefon Tel Aviv are one of the leading names in 2000s electronic music. Blending a melodic sensibility with a markedly digital approach, the American duo crafted soft-focus electronic vignettes. We retrace their story on the occasion of the release of their third full-length record

by Alberto Asquini, Roberto Mandolini

Telefon Tel Aviv no longer exist. On 22 January 2009, Charles Cooper, one half of the American duo who shaped the electronic scene of recent years, passed away. He was only 31.

In this feature, we retrace their story, one cut tragically short right in the wake of the release of their third album.

When thinking back on 2000s electronic music, Telefon Tel Aviv cannot be left out.

Despite the name chosen by the duo, Charles Cooper and Joshua Eustis, both originally from New Orleans, were mainly based in Chicago.

Their records never generated the same buzz as other works - even minor ones - by far more celebrated peers, yet the common thread running from their debut, warmly received by the trade press, to their final album, Immolate Yourself, is easy to spot. Charles and Joshua's story began a decade ago, in 1999, a story that, though lived in the shadows, quietly left its mark on the approach to modern electronic music. Alongside other German and Scandinavian acts, Telefon Tel Aviv managed to blend into a dense, compact sonic mass certain elements of so-called glitch electronica, which had exploded in the second half of the '90s, with a strong melodic streak. Drawing much of their vocabulary from both chillout music and, ultimately, dance-oriented electronica, the two musicians forged a sound that, while perhaps not hugely original, at times brushes against chords of pure poetry.

When they began making music together in 1999, the two were complete unknowns. It took two years to put their ideas together and sort them out, and in 2001 one of Chicago's leading labels, Hefty Records, signed them. That same year saw the release of the duo's acclaimed debut, Fahrenheit Fair Enough. Their first effort can be called an essential record: nine tracks and forty minutes of intricate sonic inlays. Swaying between IDM warmth and languid melodic structures, the album immerses itself in a kind of non-time that leaves room for the imagination. With riffs, accelerations, overly intrusive beats and the like banished, Telefon Tel Aviv replace rhythmic structures with architectures that gently cement their foundations on dense networks of digital gurgles, laid out like a regal carpet. The trick works, there's no denying it: the opening title track is clear proof of that.

Vaguely Oriental-tinged embroidery, not too far removed from the later melodic turns of Air, pervades the essence of "TTV", elevating it to a vignette of crystalline beauty. And while "Lotus Above Water" might seem to anticipate a strain of indietronica that would soon be popularized by their Teutonic cousins Notwist and Lali Puna, the guitar arpeggios of "John Thomas On The Inside Is Nothing But Foam" build, in a full mid-tempo atmosphere, imaginative, bittersweet brushstrokes. The sound moves languidly, layering and rippling without ever becoming intrusive, slowly resuming its placid course. Suspended mid-air, "Life Is All About Taking Things In And Putting Things Out" plays out as a genuine interlock of digital textures and sonic disturbances that follow one another in disjointed fashion.

If the first part of the album is marked by a stronger harmonic framework, with sounds decidedly geared toward a soft-focus delivery, then starting with "Your Face Reminds Me Of When I Was Old" the ambient openness stiffens, held back by the frenzy of densely packed beats, built from glitches that climb up the melody, first enveloping it and then smothering it. The same goes for all the remaining tracks, which, despite their good intentions, seem perhaps too tied to a monochromatic structure. Where in the first half the synthetic union of two different realms emerged forcefully, merging while still remaining distinguishable, here the cerebral quality of the sound takes over the opposing field, coming across, at times, as predictable as well as a bit too glitch-oriented. Even so, we should note the charm of the enveloping "Introductory Nomenclature", a track that, partly abandoning the solutions already used, resonates with a gentler, sweeter motion.

The lavish praise heaped on what is certainly a very enjoyable record thus seems somewhat excessive, as it doesn't quite live up to the masterpiece that, judging by the enthusiastic reviews coming from overseas, one might have expected to find.

Telefon Tel Aviv's second album, on the other hand, is a wonderful example of sophisticated electronic pop. An impeccable, enveloping production rarely found in the world of independent labels.

Map Of What Is Effortless could have been a worldwide hit had it only been released by a major label. Just think of what happened to Air, or to Massive Attack, for instance. With their second album, Joshua Eustis and Charles Cooper seemed to be searching for a middle ground of exactly that kind. And yet many fans were left disappointed by the duo's new direction, one more geared toward the traditional song format.

Lush arrangements, built around the warm sounds of rhodes and strings, enrich nearly every track. Lindsay Anderson's voice alone — of the wonderful L'Altra (for whom Josh produced the 2005 album, "Different Days") — would be enough to melt away any resistance to them. The lovely and talented Lindsay sings on three occasions: "My Weeks Beats Your Year", a Prince-style electrofunk number (!); "Bubble and Spike", perhaps the most beautiful song on the record, and certainly the one with the stickiest melodic hook; and "What Is Was Will Never Again", which builds to a truly breathtaking crescendo.

Then there are the long tracks sung by the excellent Damon Aaron, true gems of digital soul: "I Lied", "Nothing Is Worth Losing That" and "At The Edge Of The World You Will Still Float" — were it not for the dense production, packed with layers of sound and tantalizing details, they could easily be mistaken for one of the many R&B tracks played on MTV.

Three gorgeous instrumentals round out the album and make clear that Joshua and Charles don't need vocals to write timeless themes: Craig Armstrong would kill for a track like "Map Of What Is Effortless".

Before shutting down for good, Hefty decided to compile an album of Telefon Tel Aviv remixes. Josh and Charles's touch is unmistakable, coloring everything it touches with impossibly deep basses and swirling orchestral melodies. On Remixes Compiled, alongside remixes of Nine Inch Nails, Bebel Gilberto, Apparat and Nitrada, is their reworking of the Oliver Nelson classic "Stolen Moments", previously included on the nu-jazz compilation "Impulsive! Revolutionary Jazz Reworked".

In many cases, the duo's remixes add value to the original tracks, as with the album closer, "Knock Me Down Girl" by Slicker, which in Josh and Charles's hands turns into a devastating post-rock ballad.

Despite being the last album released by Hefty, the Telefon Tel Aviv who show up in Rome at the end of 2007 are a brand new group. They've ditched guitars, rhodes, strings and lavish arrangements. Every trace of the digital soul of "Map Of What Is Effortless" has vanished for good. In its place, Charles and Josh — hidden and hooded behind their laptops — stage an electro-shoegaze sound that seems influenced by the quiet Gooom revolution carried forward by M83. Layers of chords lifted from old analog synths play sugary, faintly melancholic melodies.

Five long years. That's how much time one of the leading names in the global electronic scene took to pick up where they left off with their penultimate effort, Map Of What Is Effortless. In the beginning, the Chicago-based band was all head and little heart, while on their second record melody took center stage. At this point, the question of what Immolate Yourself might sound like seems legitimate: some clues, beyond the rather peremptory title, might come from the label change. Once on Hefty, now on Bpitch Control — on the surface this could seem like a misleading signal, but it isn't.

Partially abandoning the use of glitch and timeless electronic expanses, Immolate Yourself makes clear from the very first notes, bluntly and decisively, what it's made of. Soft, faint textures give way to rhythm, swirling beats chasing one another in a defined, sharply sectioned motion throughout the record. Melody meets duration, and the sound, once sweet and veiled, turns pressing, without shying away from distinctly Nordic openings. The opening "The Birds" is its dazzling manifesto: a slow, exhausting ambient climax that reverberates first gradually, then with feverish intensity, cueing layered synthetic voices; a solid beat climbs and floods a nocturnal dancehall with daylight, before detonating into an ambient coda that hints at the approaching dawn.

Dry rhythmic sections once again introduce the sampled strings of "Your Mounth", a perpetual motion between calm and chaotic assaults that wouldn't have been out of place on Khonnor's debut. And while "M", like "Stay Away From Being Maybe", isn't all that far from the bittersweet synthetic arrangements of Junior Boys, the crowd-pleasing synth-pop of "Helen Of Troy" winks at the latest Anthony Gonzalez.

We can then forgive the duo the occasional stylistic misstep (the bland "Made A Tree In The World") when they pull out a danceable pop gem like "You Are The Worst Thing In The Universe".

Immolate Yourself is a record that's sure to satisfy fans of sounds poised between dreamy synth-pop and danceable atmospheres. By daring to embrace rhythm, Telefon Tel Aviv can't disappoint either the fans of their more cerebral side or those drawn to their more emotional melodic openings. Their sound skillfully alternates sweetness and roughness, touching the heart both in its melancholic, subdued moments and in its acidic, abrasive developments.