Telefon Tel Aviv - Immolate Yourself (2009)

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Joshua Curtis and Charlie Cooper have the tendency to create a nicely laid out little world for themselves with every new album, only to tear it to pieces and move the goal post in totally unexpected directions with the next.

Announced soberly on their myspace page last April in a post entitled ‘The new LP’, with the straight to the point comment ‘It’s finished’, Immolate Yourself is a strong departure from the chilled atmospheres of the pair’s somewhat disappointing second album, Maps Of What Is Effortless, released in 2004. Having first cast a gentle glow over dreamy electronica on their debut opus, Fahrenheit Fair Enough (2001), they retreated into less adventurous territories with their sophomore effort. Having delivered their former label, Chicago’s Hefty, one last shot with Remixes Compiled, collecting the pair’s reworkings of tracks by people as diverse as Nine Inch Nails, Apparat, American Analogue Set or Phil Ranelin, TTA have landed on Ellen Allien’s Berlin-based BPitch Control and adopted a resolutely more upfront and upbeat sound,

Like with Maps, TTA rely heavily on vocals throughout Immolate Yourself, but Curtis and Cooper have discarded guitars and glitched-up electronica in favour of a much more purely electro palette, applying it to songs that are overall much more adapted to the dance floor than the lounge. Album opener The Birds takes a while to build up momentum, but when it finally reaches its cruising speed, it has become an evocative piece of euphoric electronic pop. This is a process that is repeated in various forms all the way through, from the syncopated Detroit-fuelled Stay Away From Being Maybe to the heavy duty Helen Of Troy or the contrasted Your Mouth, sounding at times like some mutant electro pop contaminated by post-industrial techno and occasional washes of ambient.

While Telefon Tel Aviv do not display much of the cinematic sound that fuelled their previous efforts, Immolate Yourself is every bit as ambitious and expensive. Take the moody Mostly Translucent for instance. It may sound quiet and underwhelming at first, but TTA build layer after layer of sonic elements and slowly create a dense and sombre piece in part reminiscent of Apparat, and the sister tracks Your Every Idol, one of the rare instrumentals here, with its omnipresent drum motifs and looping melody, and the haunting and electrifying You Are The Worst Thing In The World, which casts a circling melody over lush analogue soundscapes, are undoubtedly the highlights of this album.

Recorded over the course of a year, Immolate Yourself is very much a departure from the Hefty-era Telefon Tel Aviv, but Josh Curtis and Charlie Cooper have devised a sound that’s at once contemporary and timeless. Vocals often remain shrouded in sonic fog, but this actually contributes to giving this album a moody touch, even when at its most upbeat. Refreshed and revived, Telefon Tel Aviv have produced with this third album their most enjoyable and enduring record to date.
themilkfactory