Album Review: Tellison- Contact! Contact! Remixed

If you have any common sense you will already be a fan of Tellison. They released one of the best album’s of last year armed with incredible indie/pop songs filled with handclaps and ‘wooo’s’ aplenty.

The band done some excessive touring, released a split 7” with another great UK band named Tubelord. Other than that though, the band have been quiet on the new music front, though I am willing to bet that will only be a good thing by the time the second full length comes out and blows most other UK bands out of the water, probably.

Either way, what I’m getting at is that the band have joined forces with friends and musicians alike to make a remix album to tide fans over until new material is released.

Now, from past experience remix album’s are quite the mixed bag, there are some absolute gems in there, but there’s also a lot of averageness, so it this one any different? To put it simply, no.

There are some fantastic song’s on the album, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just not consistent enough. I think the main issue is that it had the potential to be brilliant, with the original songs being fantastic, surely if the remix improved the songs then this album would be amazing, but as it is it just seems that the ideas are there, but it doesn’t quite get pulled off.

It’s not all negative by any stretch, there are some amazing tracks on this album, highlights would have to include the Dave House remix of ‘Gallery’ which sounds a bit like Chromeo if they fancied a change so they toned it down a bit and stuck Tellison front man Stephen Davidson on vocals.

The Elastik! Remix of ‘Fire’ sounds a little like Daft Punk if they made music that you listened to on a night in rather than a night out. The Tony Benson remix of ‘Architects’ is another standout, and the Maybeshewill remix of ‘Henry Went To Paris’ also impresses. So there’s definitely no shortage on decent tracks on display here.

The problem is though, as well as the good song’s there’s plenty of low standard stuff on here as well, some sound too similar to the original, some just don’t seem to work, and a couple are just boring.

Basically, if you’re already a fan of Tellison, take a punt on this becauses there will definitely be at least a couple of songs you like, but I just don’t feel this will atract any new fans. If you haven’t heard Tellison, get the original album ‘Contact! Contact!’ and realise what you’ve been missing out on.

Tellison are one of the best bands in the UK at the moment, and it’s just a shame that this album doesn’t live up to it’s potential. However, it’s only a matter of time until Tellison release their second proper album, and I would bet my life savings it will cement their place as one of the greatest bands in the UK.

3/5

More information on this release at: http://www.myspace.com/tellisonremixed

Daniel Ferguson