Overlooking the Market Square in Nottingham, the Chameleon Arts Cafe is almost too cool for a music venue. It contains cafe-style distressed furniture, beers(craft, of course) served in bottles and cans only, aged wide-board wood flooring and a large amount of facial hair!
Tonight at the Chameleon it's a three band show headlined by Telegram. First up is Blonde Bunny who describe themselves as 'Melodramatic pop/ Future-prog'. They have a trippy dub rhythm section and a singer with an amazing Billy Mackenzie (The Associates) style vocal range . 'How do you cope, hope ?' has a great Stone Roses style backing with soaring, squealing, sliding guitars over the top. Tracks 'Loreta' and 'A Rate' are also available on their Soundcloud page.
Jesuits are a four piece from Bristol with a Sonic Youth/ early Smashing Pumpkins sound topped with a dressing of psych rock. There's a rock solid rhythm section which allows the guitars to crash and squeal over the top. One track finishes with both guitarists kneeling in front of their amps and guitars squealing away. Single 'Dinner Jazz' is a standout track and they are currently recording their debut album.
Telegram released their excellent single ' Follow' in November 2013. The album 'Operator' (which was a recent 6 music album of the week) contains the single and was finally released a few weeks ago. Their sound consists of tunes at the trashy, thrashy end of glam, with a touch of Television. They combine this with a look which would be the resultant musician smoothie if you were to throw The Strokes and The Ramones into a juicer. It makes an attractive and contemporary musical package.
The minimal ceiling lighting (courtesy of B&Q) combine with a couple of white light strobes, which flicker constantly throughout the show and serve to highlight the band and their black skinny jeans. There were some great tunes. The aforementioned 'Follow' with Oli Paget-Moon's punchy bass. ‘Regatta’ where Matt Saunders’s Welsh origins are apparent in his vocals. 'All of this rat tat ta-tatting' and the new single 'Taffy Come Home'. There's a cover of Bowie's 'Heroes' and they finish the set with the last track on the album, 'Folly', which ends in a mass band thrash as Jordan Cook's drums crash around the twin guitars.
I expect people will be talking a lot about Telegram in 2016.
Alisdair Whyte
