British noise-rock pioneers The Telescopes will perform for the first time in Bucharest this autumn – November 8 at Control Club – in support of their 16th studio album, Growing Eyes Becoming String, released earlier this year.
Recorded between Berlin and Leeds, Growing Eyes Becoming String is a lost Telescopes treasure that nearly never was, rescued from the ether and now finally released by Fuzz Club Records. The origins go back a decade when, in 2013, The Telescopes were invited to record an album at Brian Jonestown Massacre‘s new studio-in-progress in Berlin, with a line-up consisting of founding member Stephen Lawrie and London psychedelic unit One Unique Signal.
On reaching Berlin, the group teamed up with good friend and author/visual artist Will Carruthers (Spacemen 3, Dead Skeletons). Carruthers, also a skilled carpenter, built soundproofing boards and recruited Anton’s producer at the time, Fabien Leseure, and together they sourced equipment from all over the city and soon had a functioning studio up and running. Between Boxing Day and New Years Day, most of the music for the four tracks that would make up side one – ‘Vanishing Lines’, ‘(In The) Hidden Fields’, ‘Dead Head Lights’ and ‘We Carry Along’ – was recorded, with Lawrie planning on finishing up back in his own studio.
Across its seven tracks are all the trademarks of quality that long-time fans associate with The Telescopes’ music. Solid songs, melody, harmony, noise, dissonance, improvisation, experimentation and an all-embracing journey beyond the realm of natural vision. As Lawrie puts it: “Loaded with guitars, noise and melody, swirling around pounding repetition, Growing Eyes Becoming String is a more vocal document of where The Telescopes’ head was at during that time.”