Telefon Tel Aviv - Immolate Yourself

Music can do many things to you. One of those things is its ability to tie itself to a particular time, feeling or mood. It does this with alarming ease, whether you want it to or not. Telefon Tel Aviv's third and, possibly, final album, Immolate Yourself, is one of those which managed to worm its way into my nocturnal winter existence, via my ipod, and still refuses to relinquish its grasp. Finding it the perfect accompaniment to working late into the night in mid-December, and for meandering homewards after an evening out, I found I was listening to it on rotation. Somehow it has transcended its initial 'depressing' depth-of-winter trappings and I still find myself coming back to it in sunny spring.

Telefon Tel Aviv, formed by Charles Cooper and Joshua Eustis in 1999, are one of those quiet, unassuming bands you discover within the depths of the internet, without much major press surrounding them, and with positive reviews across the board. Their previous albums (2001's 'Fahrenheit Fair Enough' and 2004's 'Map of What Is Effortless') were much more akin to the ambient electronica of Aphex Twin or Boards of Canada, albeit with the occasional appearance of instruments, while 'Immolate Yourself' inhabits darker, murkier territory, especially when the band claimed they recorded it to analogue tape, using old school production techniques and synths to 'sound more real'. I'm not quite sure what the result of this was, but there was certainly a different approach and feeling within the band during the production, and I suppose you can't talk about the mood this album evokes without mentioning the sad circumstances surrounding the death of band member Cooper (April 12, 1977 - January 22, 2009), found dead from an apparent suicide in the week following the release of 'Immolate Yourself'. It would be contrite to declare the album's sound a depressed cry for help, as their previous affairs were hardly the cheeriest of records, yet there is a distinctly different feeling to be found on Immolate, a tension even. I hope this doesn't diminish anyone's enjoyment of what is, at its heart, a powerful and involving electronic record, filled with detailed production, glorious melodies and real emotion.

This album will appeal to the late-night urban wander in all of us, with its creeping synth melodies sailing up out of the background on tracks like 'M', almost as if they were seeping out of the back-alley entrance to a warehouse club without any adverts or flyers. But it also holds appeal as classic IDM tomfoolery, with 'Stay Away From Being Maybe' bounding along on an almost danceable beat. Some slight sagging in the middle of the album doesn't let the affair down, as the beautiful 'I Made A Tree On The World' appears soon after, illuminated under a failing street lamp, and whose intricate layering of sounds builds to an eerie crescendo. The final track 'Immolate Yourself', despite its dubiously forward-thinking title and some hushed vocals, is a blaze of glory ending, and is possibly the nearest thing to an honest-to-god song you can find while meandering around 'Immolate'.

Though by no means a perfect album, with few proper 'singles' to shout about, this album does a superb job encapsulating a feeling, whether its freezing your knees off waiting for a night-bus; pining after someone; or just laying on your bed, eyes closed, in some other time and place. I urge listeners to check out their other albums, and give this little band some support. Eustis continues to work as TTA, with his most recent output a dancey little collaboration with Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie, 'The Sky is Black', appearing on the BPitch compilation 'Werkschau'.