BELGIAN synth visionaries-cum-pranksters Telex have dropped a video for their previously unreleased, recently discovered take on “Dear Prudence” – you can watch it below.
Their take – treated with just a little more harmonic reverence than their British charting, brilliantly robotic “Rock Around The Clock” – came to light when surviving members Dan Lacksman and Michel Moers were compiling their new compilation for Mute, with whom they’re beginning a comprehensive reissue programme, to be entitled This is Telex, which is out on April 30th.
The 14-track compilation features new mixes of 12 classics from the oeuvre and a brace of previously unreleased tracks – including that Beatles cover.
This is Telex will be released on limited coloured vinyl – deliciously garish shrimp pink and fern green – cassette and CD, and will feature sleeve notes from Mars By 1980 author David Stubbs. It’ll also be available digitally and in a limited edition T-shirt bundle.
The compilation will feature subtly brightened singles from across Telex’s career, from their debut single, “Twist à Saint Tropez” in 1978 through to their final album release, How Do You Dance? in 2006.
The new mixes and remasters were undertaken by surviving members Dan Lacksman and Michel Moers, and notably often involved subtracting from, rather than adding to, the original multi-track recordings.
“We simplify,” explains Dan Lacksman. “We take away, to create something more efficient, more Telex.”
Obviously there’s room for greats from the catalogue, such as “Moskow Diskow” (see a new version of the video when we covered it here) and “Euro-vision” – but it gets really interesting with these heretofore unheard tracks, the other being a slow swing through Buddy Rich’s “The Beat Goes On”, entitled “The Beat Goes On Off”, indebted to Sonny & Cher’s swanky 1967 version.
There’s also room, of course, for their version of Sparks’ seminal “The Number One Song In Heaven”, on which they have a co-writing credit.
Telex and their electronic pop were regarded with suspicion in 1978, with a serious-playful manifesto about our technological future, and they delighted in an off-kilter cover; I mean, “Rock Around the Clock”. Say no more.
Telex’s This Is Telex will be released on April 30th; you can pre-order your copy here.
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