by Amaris Pollinger
“I wanted to turn over and over again to a fresh new page…”
The most important thing to know about The Telescopes’s fourteenth album, Experimental Health is that it is entirely transportive and all-encompassing. It’s so transportive that I went into a meditative state and decided to sketch a gift for my husband, and I hardly pick up a graphite pencil these days. It really does take you somewhere else. Quite frankly, my time spent listening to Experimental Health has been some of the most relaxing moments I’ve had in March. There is something so peaceful, so serene about experimental noise that is lost in most genres, and growing up with it readily available in my very privileged music archive curated by my noize-loving GenX mother, it’s very nostalgic for me. Sure, it probably sounds like…well…static, and that’s usually because, to some degree, it is. Upon closer inspection, however, there’s nothing serene about the subject matter of Experimental Health. And that’s exactly what Stephen Lawrie intended.
The Telescopes have had a fluid lineup—ranging anywhere from one to twenty members on a single album. However, Experimental Health was crafted entirely by Lawrie in isolation, made with “broken toys” and “cheap synths” and absolutely no guitars; an organic rather than intentional decision. The album is haunting and it’s not just because it was created from the souls of broken toys. Its multi-layered complexity has a lot to do with Stephen Lawrie’s choice in utilizing pocket operators manufactured by Teenage Engineering—credit card-sized drum machines/synths that are also step sequencers with built-in effects.
But the electronic makeup of Experimental Health isn’t the only thing that’s complex. The lyrical themes of the album are deliciously disturbing and confrontational; forcing the listener to take a long, hard look at our societies. And not just the surface issues either. The first spark of fury (and inspiration) for Stephen Lawrie was when the government began placing COVID patients in care homes.
“The whole idea of everyone locked down was to protect the vulnerable. It was a huge contradiction to the whole objective,” says Lawrie.
Look no further than the opening track, “Because They Care” to give you an idea of just how tongue-in-cheek Experimental Health is. It goes without saying that there is a heavy turn in the direction of the medical industry on the album. Songs like, “The Turns,” for example, simultaneously references turning a patient over to prevent bedsores as well as suffering from a psychotic episode.
“’Oh dear, they seem to be having another one of their turns,’ it was inspired by a mounting impression of being surrounded by insanity at the time,” Lawrie says, elaborating on the inspiration behind “The Turns.”
As with many artists, Lawrie’s personal experiences at the time trickled into the album. Like the prolific figures of artist Robert Lenkiewicz and the vagrant Edward “Diogenes” McKenzie. Both individuals made their impression on Lawrie and found their way into the mythos of Experimental Health. McKenzie lived much like the philosopher of whom he was named after; in a circular container overlooking a rubbish point in Plymouth. Naturally, Robert Lenkiewicz acquainted himself with the vagrant and called him “Diogenes.” McKenzie made some intriguing claims about his life and left seeds of wisdom throughout the land before he died. Some of those words found their way into “The Turns.”
“Live while you can and live in clover/when you’m dead, you’m dead all over.’ I felt like I wanted to turn over and over again to a fresh new page,” says Stephen Lawrie.
When Edward McKenzie died, Robert Lenkiewicz kept his embalmed body beneath his bed as a memento mori (something that McKenzie had consented to before passing away). The connection to Robert Lenkiewicz goes even further; Lawrie’s wife and sister-in-law were both painted by the artist as kids and Lawrie’s wife reacquainted herself with Lenkiewicz years later.
“We both find him [Robert Lenkiewicz] fascinating,” says Lawrie.
Dementia played a pivotal role in the crafting of the track, “Repetitive Brain Injury.” A family member of Lawrie’s passed away after having their routine disrupted at the behest of government mandates. After suffering from a fall, they ended up in the hospital where they contracted COVID and died. To Lawrie and his family, it felt as though their relative would have been safer if they had been allowed to tend to their routine.
“Routine is essential to a lot of people with that condition,” Lawrie says, “any disruption to that routine, such as being locked down, can send them off-kilter. We were left feeling that people in their situation weren’t really taken into consideration.”
But that personal experience wasn’t the only one to set Lawrie off. Lawrie watched as nurses and carers were forced to choose between their jobs or cave to an unknown, hastened vaccine. It was a complete violation of human rights that inspired the track “45e,” titled after the clause in the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act of 1984 meant to protect the public from receiving mandatory medical treatment. “45e” is Lawrie’s reaction to a very disturbing mandate where the drugs are “so awesome they have to force them.”
“We seem to be living in hateful times, full of backwards thinking,” Lawrie comments after telling me about a wave machine that’s being considered for the English Channel to deter refugees. “If you’re prepared to risk your life in a shoddy vessel to escape something, then what you’re running from must be a lot worse than the thought of drowning.”
Walls should be crumbling down, and that’s the true meaning behind The Telescopes being “all-encompassing.” You can see it at their live shows and hear it in their sound; the dedication to music and their general community is, like the sonic power of Experimental Health, all-encompassing. When you listen to The Telescopes, you are enveloped and you become encased in their sound. Called “a project that’s been proven to defy and challenge itself,” I ask Lawrie why he thinks that is. Lawrie says quite simply that, “The Telescopes refuse to make the same album twice,” (say no more).
After pondering the state of our world, politics, medicine, saviors, and all, I ask Stephen Lawrie if there’s anything he wants to close with. In true mystic fashion, he only says:
“Infinite suns to all the listeners.”
Currently, The Telescopes are at work on another album for Tapete Records, including a radio sessions album scheduled for May. A compilation of rare experimental tracks will also be released on Modern Records. Remixes of 7” from the previous album on Fuzz Club by A Place to Bury Strangers and Throw Down Bones are also in the works. Experimental Health is out now on Weisskalt Records.
*Cover photo and press photo courtesy of Weisskalt Records*