-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers! Something about the time of year and the enjoyment of sunshine and outdoors makes me late on these posts. Apologies. Our Pick this week certainly deserves better! From Copenhagen, Denmark, with their long-awaited debut long-player: Telstar Sound Drone!

The new album, Comedown, is out now on the always-reliable Bad Afro Records. (Mail order & distribution here.)

Consisting of seven sizzling tracks which swing and surge with purpose, the album consistently delivers on the promise of the earlier EPs the band are -or should be, known for. With nods and winks interspersed for those in the know this trio come up trumps with an engaging and satisfying record. Highly recommended.
Here's what the band said about the recording process, via their blog:
" The album was recorded by ourselves at our rehearsal space: a small and dark WWII underground air-raid shelter (a lot of late nights turning into early mornings). We wanted to make the record feel alive, so we decided to do only a couple of takes while recording and then make use of what was. No click-track, no drum-editing and so forth. We wanted to lose control, to embrace the moment and the randomness. A lot of things were tried out and we wrote many songs (twenty-something) before we settled on what should go on the record. It was a collective process and we want to cut the individualistic bullshit and acknowledge the fact that we're a group of persons, even though this seems to be old-fashioned these days... To help us let go of our own premeditated ideas we invited some guests while recording; The Hobbit (Spids Nøgenhat, On Trial ...) plays guitar on a most of the album; Christian Norup (Bite The Bullet, Highway Child ...) did a lot of the bass and Kåre Joensen (Robot, Baby Woodrose ... ) did some modular synth parts on a couple of tracks. We decided to do it the old-school way and mix the record straight to the master tape, doing fades, effects and whatnot live without being able to make any corrections afterwards. It's not that we're retro fanatics, though! We did the shelter-recordings on a computer and generally made use of anything we could, but the records we love (and keep on loving) are the records with a real human trace. With faults, random occurrences and everything that doens't always happen, when you're in total control. When you're mixing an album live you're performing the songs one last time, and you have to be completely present and focused. Everything gets recorded on the master tape and ultimately goes on the album. We did the mixing at the amazing Black Tornado Studios with producer/technician Dr. A. O. Hansen. Black Tornado is situated in the outskirts of Copenhagen and has a nice casual atmosphere and the best collection of outboard gear Denmark has to offer, which we really made good use of. After the mixing, Lars Lundholm mastered the record, also at Black Tornado Studios."
What do they sound like?

Like that. Go get some!

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You can listen to the archived stream here; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.