Teleman is a new name for me this year. I also somehow managed to miss out Pete and the Pirates completely, so Brilliant Sanity is my first introduction to Thomas Sanders and his cohorts, but what a great starting point this album has turned out to be. It’s beautifully produced by Dan Carey (Sexwitch, Bat For Lashes, Kate Tempest), everything is crystal clear, direct and up front, but there’s also an incredible liveness to it. You feel the strength of the performances underpinning each track, the energy of a band not just nailing it, but thrilling in the experience. The band speak fondly of the recording process in their press release – six months of rehearsals honing the songs, perfecting the pop arrangements on a whiteboard with multi-coloured markers, before taking them to Carey’s studio in Streatham, where it sounds like they had a whale of a time putting them together.
The band decided, after touring their début Breakfast, that their live show should be at the crux of this new record, but it’s clear from a glance at their back story that the sympathetic playing on this record has its roots in the long history of the players – Teleman has the same core as their previous incarnation Pete And The Pirates: Thomas Sanders (vocals and now guitar), his brother Jonny Sanders (originally drums but now in charge of the distinctive synths) and Pete Cattermoul (bass). These guys had seven years with their old group before breaking off to create this new project, having found that their former band-mates didn’t share the same desire and commitment to the musical cause. Their newest recruit, drummer Hiro Amamiya, was clearly a great find, his metronomic, precise drumming – so wonderfully captured by Carey (just listen to that snare) – is clearly a key component to the band's sound and probably one of the reasons why the band have drawn comparisons to Kraftwerk. That kraut-rock style man-as-machine drumming is alive and well on this record.
The band don’t shy away from the comparison though as the opening track and single ‘Dusseldorf’, which just happens to be Kraftwerk’s home town, might tell you. The song opens with a pulsing arpeggio synth, making me anticipate something much more digital than what arrives. The band sound melodically reminiscent to Britpop-era indie bands like Blur and Pulp, who combined gritty guitars and warm keyboards with unmistakeably British vocals. There’s more to it than that though, there’s that tight relentlessly repetitive rhythm to every instrument, like The Strokes début but warmer, more human, with a broader range of dynamics. They also evoke Arcade Fire in certain places, although their instrumentation is less dense, their skill at producing immaculate slices of rousing epic pop is comparable. The album is rounded out further by the range of songs, there’s a clearly defined sound, they never stray too far from the blueprint established by the opening track, but they’ve found lots of places, lots of moods they can take that blueprint too and they move effortlessly from one to the next – probably helped by the fact everyone in the group contributes to the writing. My highlights include ‘Drop Out’, which manages to keep me hooked through five minutes of not seeming to go anywhere, mid-point ballad ‘Canvas Shoe’, which makes fantastically unusual chord choices and ‘Tangerine’ with it’s wonderfully fuzzy guitars playing off against an almost Japanese-sounding synth line and a groove and vocal Talking Heads could have pulled out of the bag.
There’s a vulnerability to Thomas Sanders voice that really works with the material, adding an authenticity to a track like ‘Glory Hallelujah’, that wouldn’t work quite so well with someone who has a fuller, more effortless voice – there’s real emotion as he reaches for those higher notes and a sort of everyman quality that reminds me a little of Metronomy’s Joseph Mount. Mount would appreciate Jonny Sanders' keyboard playing on this record too: the sounds are wonderfully warm – aided by Dan Carey’s assertion they should stick to a core of synthesisers for shaping the sound of the album. The Mellotron, the Roland Jupiter and the Korg Trident are classic old school and analog vintage synths – the latter two are from the early 80s and The Mellotron comes from the 60s, perhaps best known as a toy The Beatles put to great use on ‘Strawberry Fields’. It used tape loops which have long since been digitally sampled, I wonder if Dan Carey has an original?
Brilliant Sanity takes its name from an intriguing term used in the field of contemplative psychotherapy – an approach to psychotherapy that is informed by Buddhist practices of meditation and personal contemplation. If I’m understanding it right we all have brilliant sanity, it is the core of our personality, even if we lose sight of it from time to time. We all have a basic nature and, according to the theory, we all have natural dignity and wisdom and we are characterised by clarity, openness and compassion. Perhaps then Teleman have reached some sort of state of group 'Brilliant Sanity' for this record. I read in early interviews how they had parted company with their old band-mates who wanted things to stay how they were and fun, because they wanted to take things more seriously and turn the band into a career. Perhaps with this album they’ve actually proven that you can have both: all the fun while taking it seriously. There’s a serious, rousing joy that permeates this record, but it’s a serious sort of joy – they are loving this and it means the world to them. What a great place to be!
Adam Kidd
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