WL//WH Track Of Day TELEPHONIST
The up-and-coming German Shoegaze duo Telephonist, comprising multi-instrumentalists and producers Dennis Mielke and Oskar Middelhauve, came together in Dortmund in 2023.
Taking their cues from bands such as DIIV, Duster, Cocteau Twins, Sonic Youth and Slowdive, paired with German lyrics, the band unveils their emotive, introspective and shadowy sound through a couple of singles in a row, both part of the soon-to-be-released debut EP, “Gegen die Wand” (Towards the Wall), via Porcupine Records, the latest titled “Kalter Beton”, a song about how an old, rough, and wide feeling of cold concrete obstructs the view of and takes over another.
“Kalter Beton” unfolds calmly yet with a desolate obsessive pace that intersects intrinsic Slowcore sadness with buzzy brushstrokes of Shoegaze atmospherics, on which weak, dreamy vocals and haunted echoes, slowly gain strength, cruising on a rippling and changing frozen sea of bittersweet electro-acoustic guitar melodies, stirred by an underlying of insistent moody bass pulses, washed over by slightly abrasive and grating hopeless sheets of fuzzy distortions, to fall overwhelmed, punctuated by a swell of forlorn keys, in ‘your cold concrete’.
The black and white visuals sync a symbolic use of lights, shadows, reflections and inversions with the affliction of the soundtrack. During the first half of the clip, the thoughtful use of clarity and alternating speeds brings forth a significant eye for fine detail and texture. Near the end, the light becomes covered with a thick, grey darkening film (Cold Concrete), causing sight to blur, become monochromatic, and invert into a dark ghostly vision.
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