Yes, we jock Telefon Tel Aviv here. So what. Some people like to put pickles in their PB-and-J’s and nobody says shit about that.
Johshia Eustis and longtime TTA confidant Fredo Nogueira, who is taking the place of the late Charles Cooper alongside Eustis during the 20-stop tour, packed the Mercury Lounge earlier this month for a 40-minute set. The first sellout of the tour after a solid turnout at Brooklyn’s Bell House a night earlier, moving — dancing, even — was an impossibility for the first half of the show. Glitchy, ethereal downtempo electronica gave way to Jersey baritone buttrock by encore time, however, with a seemingly emotionless Eustis thanking the transfixed crowd before launching into Springsteen’s”I’m on Fire.”
After the place had cleared, Eustis — like everyone in showbiz, smaller than expected — confided to us that he “hated” the group’s second album, Map of What is Effortless. More vocally driven than TTA’s earlier Fahrenheit Fair Enough and less electronically daring than their subsequent album, this year’s Immolate Yourself, the Hefty Records-released Map is a more lounge-worthy departure from Telefon’s sonic experimentalism. That said, to hear Eustis damning it as a mistake was striking — held up against a crowded field of Massive Attack-biting downtempo competition, it’s still a very solid album.
Eustis loses fanboy points, however, for turning down a most generous offer of Jameson shots. Apologies on shitty iPhone fotos, btw (“by the way”) — we foolishly respected the Merc’s completely-ignored recording ban and left the good equipment at home.
