ALBUM REVIEW: The Telescopes – Experimental Health

Weisskalt Records

Released: 24.02.23

Fourteen albums in and the urge to experiment is indeed in rude health with Stephen Lawrie.  Holed up in remote West Yorkshire he has independently produced, with a bunch of cheap instruments and no guitars, an album of lo-fi psyched-out swirls that lushly loop around, distorted and rich, defying any humble origins.

There is a healthy depth to its strangeness, with a motorik combination of synths, noise and percussion, and I can fully understand why the electric strings are absent; we still get to gaze longingly at our feet beneath the keys and knobs as we float in the flickering of the VU vibes. Pop your sunglasses on, we’re inside and it’s smokin’ “When I hear the sound”.