Friday, August 25, 2017

Song(s) of the Day # 1,314 Telstar Ponies


David Keenan Day on here. And to start with, Telstar Ponies, who he formed after leaving Creation artists 18 Wheeler in disgust when the other members started mentioning their ambition of supplementing their songs with string arrangements. Telstar Ponies swam with a particular tide in the mid-nineties, but it was a particularly Scottish tide. Fellow swimmers included Mogwai, The Delgados,  Arab Strap and Urusei Yatsura. Not household names. The Ponies spat in the face of Brit Pop, (which was what was really happening commercially in the UK at the time), and can best be heard on their wonderful debut album from, 1995 In the Space of a Few Minutes.


The record can be described as 'the sound of dread'. Drawing on the influence of the American avant gard, Sonic Youth and Slint, in particular, I remember it as something I always found slightly terrifying when I listened to it, (on a fairly regular basis), during a period living with my parents in the late nineties. It's definitely a lost and unjustly forgotten record. Its story is told in full and placed in context in a review here from the New Perfect Collection blog. 


The songs are phenomenally intense but also beautifully staged, all informed by the sense that you get when listening to Sonic Youth's Evol or watching classic Hitchcock, that something awful is just about to happen. Hear it! It doesn't deserve to be neglected.



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