The chrome might be 'on it', but Telepathe miss by a hairs breadth...

When it comes to forming an avant electro pop duo, it would seem Telepathe have all the right ingredients. They’re both pretty sassy ladies from Brooklyn. They even managed to snare themselves Michael Sitek as a collaborator on debut album ‘Dance Mother’. Oh, and one of them is called Busy Ganges. Slick.

So why when watching Telepathe live does it feel like something’s missing? It’s certainly not the venue, The Deaf Institute is one of the few places in Manchester you can routinely rely on not to cock up a band’s performances with poor sound quality or a tepid atmosphere.

Maybe it’s the fact that the lights were turned right down, I assume to ‘create a mood’. All it did was see to it that you struggle to see the band thus making it very difficult to develop a rapport with their performance.

It borders on frustrating, because the band themselves have some brilliant tunes. ‘Chrome’s On It’ is a joy to watch live, with the drum machines and the rumble from the bass even causing the optics at the bar to topple over.

‘In Your Line’ is one of the stand-out tracks on the album, and that too transfers over to the live performance. Ganges and her band-mate Melissa Livaudais’ almost lackadaisical vocal delivery is a blessing on this track. The military drums saunter along hand in hand with the girls’ lyrics.

Not many people are aware of the decibel measuring device in the top right corner of the main hall at The Deaf Institute, yet for this performance it seemed to be the only consistent performer, with its levels perpetually in the red.

Unfortunately for Telepathe that wasn’t a good thing, as the performance at times was just a load of riff-raff and carried no real substance or weight.

On the track ‘Can’t Stand It’, the pair repeats “Oh you know it could be so much better”. This was a case of life imitating art. Telepathe certainly aren’t a million miles from being a fantastic act, both on wax and live, but when it comes to the latter some fine tuning is required.

Obviously we're trying to save a bit on energy these days, but surely it can't hurt to turn the lights up; or even on.


3 out of 5