There's a bit around fifty seconds into 'Sylvia' where a childlike cry of "wa-wooooow!" chimes in amongst the motorik beat and persistent, monotonous (but great) bassline, and in those couple of seconds, Telekinesis' new album 'Ad Infinitum' is summed up perfectly. The song goes on to add soaring, cosmic electronics and a myriad of wondrous sounds until it becomes one of the most blissful, driving pieces of dreampop you're ever likely to hear. You'd be forgiven for thinking the Seattle group had played their trump card too soon, but while it does send everything totally skyward after the more pensive and downbeat opening track 'Falling (In Dreams)', which itself is a wonderful song with flashes of the same magic, it's more a benchmark for what's to come, rather than any kind of high point.
This is an album overflowing with electro/pop/krautrock/dreampop wonderment, and if you can find a low point then you need you ears testing. 'In A Future World' is a bit like what would happen if Grandaddy covered The Postal Service and then had the results remixed by French experimentalists Yeti Lane. This then slams straight into the rampant 'Courtesy Phone' and you realise that suddenly The Go! Team have a battle on their hands for the most euphoric and stupendously good alternative pop album of the year. It's not always necessary to talk about every song on a record when reviewing it, and the same goes for essentially running through them in order, but 'Ad Infinitum' feels like you've strapped yourself in for a journey through sound, and every stop of the way is special enough to warrant a few words of its own. That magical period between being awake and asleep can make troubles disappear and everything feel warm and snuggly, and that's exactly the effect that 'Sleeping In' does, but the clattering beat and plinky keys of 'Edgewood' wake you up fully, although the world you enter is more sugar-coated than the real one, as some sharp guitar caves in to a break of sighs before everything clicks back into gear in a bigger and better way.
Just when you think the multitude of textures risk becoming too much on the slightly brash first section of 'It's Not Yr Fault', space opens up and melody is pulled forth, securing everything in place even though it remains hectic. The contrast in mood to the more thoughtful 'Farmer's Road' is noticeable, but somehow even this feels upbeat despite lines like "you let it get you, you let it tear your heart away". The music doesn't mask the change in mood, rather it makes it fit and even enhances it. The album bows out with 'Ad Infinitum Pt. 1' and 'Ad Infinitum Pt. 2'. The first part is a simply gorgeous, drifting instrumental that's cinematic and dreamy, yet it's the second part that really puts the icing on cake. Slower than most songs here, the booming electronic beat and the piano create an impressive atmosphere, but when the yearning, echoing vocals kick in we're whisked off to somewhere altogether more fantastical and it's reminiscent of The Flaming Lips at their most glorious. Telekinesis have really hit the mark with 'Ad Infinitum', and the result is arguably the best album of its kind that you'll hear this year.
Telekinesis' website
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