TELEX CHAT with TELEX

T:Telex

�|Michel Moers, Dan Lacksman, Marc Moulin, after almost 3 1/2 years Telex, you are releasing your 3rd album. �sYes. �|What have you done during the last 1 1/2 years? It has been very quiet around the group Telex. Since the previous album, you have released the single "Soul Waves", but this was not a real success in comparison with for example "Moskow Discow" or "Rock Around The Clock". �sExactly. �|"Soul Waves" isn't on the new LP "Sex". It seems that you are getting steadily further away from the cold atmosphere of electronic music. The title of the album would seems to back this up. We get the impression that you reject the usual themes of electronic music. No longer robots, no computers, no longer cheap futurism. �sThat is right. �|The music has to an important degree become harder, more rythmic and more varied. However you still work exclusively with synthesizers. It would seem that Telex has accepted the task of lifting this type of music out of its mechanical cliches. You seem to hate all cliches. �sOf course. �|The lyrics on "Sex" have been written in the studio together with Ron and Russell Mael, the Sparks Brothers. You have been fans of the Sparks for a long time and it appears that the meeting occurs after an important musical and personal experience. �sThat is the least you can say.

�|Nevertheless it seems that this improvement of the English lyrics particulaty with regard to the musical tone of the words, has not caused a radical departure from those french or english lyrics which were written by yourself. I get the impression that Michel and the Sparks share the same influences. �sIndeed. �|A silence of 1 1/2 years has allowed you to observe a series of trends, such as aka, rockabilly and neo-romantic. Telex seems to be wary of trends as if they cannot play an exciting role in direct communication. There are many peculiar moves: the show -bizz world discovers the twist 4 years after it existed, the rock world discovered funk-eventhough funk had always been there-there are fewer world hits than previously and Telex doesn't pose itself any questions, just deals. �sAs you say. �|Without strong activities, without strategy. You deviate from the business plan and from marketing. It took a long time for you to be able to change record companies. It doesn't realy matter what the problems were, it is only important that this is a new beginning for Telex. �sThat much is certain. �|You attach to this album a great deal of importance on rythm, sound and humour. One has the impression that the humour is less strained, lighter, perhaps as a result the humour is more effective. �sWe hope so. �|After two albums concerning communication and non-communicaton, are you now looking at the individual, his spiritual world, his personality, his problems of relating. Why is the name of the record "Sex"? �sThat is a very difficult question!

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