Telex will release a box set, collating the long-awaited remastered reissues of their 6 studio albums, Looking for Saint-Tropez (1979), Neurovision (1980), Sex (1981), Wonderful World (1984), Looney Tunes (1988) and How Do You Dance? (2006).
Remastered and newly mixed from the original tapes by Dan Lacksman and Michel Moers,
Telex will be out as a 6-piece vinyl box set, a 6xCD box set and digitally on Mute on 3 March 2023. The Belgian synthpop trio – Marc Moulin (1942- 2008), Dan Lacksman and Michel Moers – launched in Brussels in 1978 and, as one of only a handful of synthpop pioneers at the time, helped bring electronic pop to the mainstream.
The new EP includes tracks from across all 6 albums, including ‘Pakmoväst’ from their debut (which also appeared on the flip side of ‘Moskow Diskow’), ‘Tour De France’ (no, not that one – this track pre-dates Kraftwerk’s by 3 years), the single ‘Haven’t We Met Somewhere Before’ (a songwriting collaboration with Ron & Russell Mael aka Sparks), ‘Temporary Chicken’ (from the aptly titled album Looney Tunes) and their take on Canned Heat’s ’68 classic ‘On The Road Again’.
TELEX EP 2 TRACKLISTING1
Pakmoväst (from Looking for Saint-Tropez)2 Tour De France (from Neurovision)
3 Haven’t We Met Somewhere Before (from Sex)
4 It Could Happen To You (from Wonderful World)
5 Temporary Chicken (from Looney Tunes)
6 On The Road Again (from How Do You Dance?
Their debut album Looking For Saint Tropez contains covers of Plastic Bertrand’s pop-punk ‘Ça Plane Pour Moi’ and Bill Haley’s ‘Rock Around The Clock’, in which, so to speak, all of the rock is removed leaving nothing but the clock; a ticking, vocoderised, supremely deadpan robot parody of the original. Had Telex merely confined themselves to such covers they might have been regarded as a rather clever comedy band. But they also cut ‘Moskow Diskow’, a rollocking, swerving, steaming dancefloor classic, a track which lays down the railroad for as yet unimagined electronic musics such as House and Techno. Years ahead of its time, its reputation has only been enhanced over time, as other, more datestamped electropop has fallen by the wayside.
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The follow up, Neurovision, includes the track ‘Euro-vision’ which was famously entered into the Eurovision Song Contest, representing Belgium. Moers says he regarded their entry as “very Situationist International, the worm in the apple.” and they resolved either to come first or last. They didn’t achieve that goal, but became part of the Eurovision saga.
For 1981’s Sex, the trio teamed up with Sparks, a match made in heaven given both band’s determination to make electronic pop music suffused with conceptual wit. They got along tremendously, Ron & Russell Mael staying on in Brussels far longer than they’d originally intended, and Sparks contributed lyrics for the entire album.
Wonderful World followed in 1984, and the title track included here on the EP shows a band continuing to push a state-of-the art sound. 1988’s Looney Tunes, featuring the Dadaist cut-up “rap” of ‘Peanuts’, resulted in Motown among those vying to sign them. “It would have been great to have been the second white band on Tamla Motown. Iron Butterfly were the first.”, says Lacksman. That wasn’t to be, though, and the band instead worked on projects outside of Telex until 2006’s How Do You Dance?, an album that proves that Telex remained not only true to themselves but had grown with the new developments in musical software
Telex announced their retirement in 2008, following Moulin’s death, and in 2021 began a new partnership with Mute beginning with the release of This Is Telex, featuring two unreleased tracks. Listen to the album here“
Order the EP via Bandcamp
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Tracklisting
LOOKING FOR SAINT-TROPEZ (1979) – red vinyl
Moskow Diskow
Pakmoväst
Café De La Jungle
Ça Plane Pour Moi
Some Day / Un Jour
Something To Say
Rock Around The Clock
Victime De La Societe
Twist À Saint-Tropez
NEUROVISION (1980) – white vinyl
A/B
Réalité
Cliché
En Route Vers De Nouvelles Aventures
Tour De France
We Are All Getting Old
My Time
Plus De Distance (More Than Distance)
Euro-Vision
Dance To The Music
Lakelele
Soul Waves
SEX – lyrics by Sparks – orange vinyl Brainwash
Drama, Drama
Haven’t We Met Somewhere Before
Long Holiday
The Man With The Answer
Carbon Copy
Exercise Is Good For You
Dream-O-Mat
Dummy
Sigmund Freud’s Party
WONDERFUL WORLD – blue vinyl L’amour Toujours
So Sad
Raised By Snakes
It Could Happen To You
Second Hand
Tell Me It’s A Dream
Vertigo
The Voice
Radio-Radio
Wonderful World
LOONEY TUNES – yellow vinylI Don’t Like Music
Temporary Chicken
Spike Jones
Beautiful Li(f)e
Dingo Bells
I Want Your Brain
Baby, When?
Peanuts
Happy End (I Wanna)
Rendez-Vous Dans L’espace
HOW DO YOU DANCE? – green vinyl
On The Road Again
How Do You Dance?
This Is Your Song
The Number One Song In Heaven
J’aime La Vie
White Noise
Move!
Jailhouse Rock
Do Worry
La Bamba-X
The vinyl and CD Telex box set is released by Mute, and includes a 12-page booklet and audio download code. Pre-order
THE ORGAN 