Artist:Telefon Tel Aviv
Album: Fahrenheit Fair Enough
Year: 2001
Genre:Electronica, Downtempo, Chillout
Country:United States
Telefon Tel Aviv is a music collective headed by Josh Eustis and Charlie Cooper of New Orleans, Louisiana. The two originally met in high school, but did not begin working on music together until after university studies. Since 1999 the two have been working to cultivate their sound, one that is based largely in electronic music, but that also shows flourishes of classical, vintage soul, ambient drone, and noise, among other things.
On Fahrenheit Fair Enough, guitars and pianos share the spectrum with alien sound forms, supported by slow breakbeat-style rhythmic patterns. The ambiences created for this record are spacious and rely on soft melodies and clever instrumentation. The title track, which opens the album, offers a recurring clean melodic line, at first gliding over hesitant sonic forms, before developing onto found sounds and broken beat structure. The same chilled ambiences are found all throughout Fahrenheit Fair Enough. On John Thomas On The Inside…, guitarist Alfredo Nogueira gives a surprising twist to the Telefon Tel Aviv sound by introducing a proper acoustic instrument in the apparent acoustic atmospheres generated by the duo. It takes a while to discern the real from the virtual, but it definitely brings an increased organic feel to the track. Elsewhere, it is the electronic nature of the duo’s compositions that prevails. What’s The Use Of Feet… is a perfect example of the more mechanical side of Telefon Tel Aviv’s music. Although a piano punctuate the track with chords, it is generally a more intricate formation that the duo presents here. This perfect symbiosis of sound proves to be an excellent formula for the New Orleans band. Telefon Tel Aviv create with this first album, a brilliant series of chilled electronica, avoiding all the downfalls of ambient by carefully setting up their ambiences.
