Melbourne's hot new indie pop three-piece Telenova are fresh off the back of their debut single release and sold-out tour, but they've wasted no time in following up with their new single 'Tranquilize'. Their debut single 'Bones', which dropped mid-March, introduced us to the sweet sounds of Telenova. 'Tranquilize' treats us to a continuation of the sound of 'Bones', with midtempo drum loops, spacey and atmospheric chords, and the dulcet tones of frontwoman Angeline Armstrong. The song was entirely written on the trio's first ever day together as a band - when Armstrong was introduced to Edward Quinn (Slum Sociable) and Joshua Moriarty (Miami Horror) by Chris Walla (Death Cab For Cutie) at an APRA SongHubs writing camp in early 2020. "I was actually flicking through a thesaurus and the word ‘Tranquilize’ jumped out at me," Armstrong recalls. "it just rang so nicely on the tongue and was so inherently visceral. I was humming gibberish over the hypnotic Rhodes chords that Josh had laid down, and we heard what sounded like ‘Poseidon’s on the water’ - it was the first time in a writing session with Ed and Josh, and the first time I’d been in a writing session where a poetic, literary lyric idea like that wasn’t shunned and coined as ‘unrelatable’. "It resonated. We followed the thread, playing into Siren mythology as a metaphor for falling in love - the power of attraction to transfix and tranquilize you." The song's music video, directed by Armstrong, features a "Lynchian-inspired dreamscape", which she further describes as "like David Lynch meets Gucci".
"Leaning heavily into the lyrical metaphor of Siren mythology of Tranquilize, we formed this story of a Siren-on-the-run, masquerading as a jazz singer in a dingy, nautical underground club, as a kind of introduction to the whole Telenova universe," Armstrong explains. "I grew up in Williamstown and on the way to school, would drive past this towering building that was a standing replica of the Titanic ship. We ended up shooting the clip inside the Titanic - turns out they do theatre restaurant shows there and the floors move to replicate the motion of the water and a sinking ship and everything." "The cast & crew on the clip were a combination of new and long-time collaborator creatives that I’ve worked with in film. Daniel Bolt, won ‘Gold’ at the Australian Cinematographers Society Awards for his work as Director of Photography. Everyone brought a slice of their own creativity to the clip - I’m so proud of what everyone brought to the picture." The trio previously impressed us with 'Bones', and now they've gone two for two with this new single. We're itching for more Telenova, and we hopefully won't have to wait too long.
Comments