Hilary Rawk

Electronic-music masters Joshua Eustis and Charlie Cooper make up the group Telefon Tel Aviv. The New Orleans-bred duo have known each other since they were 15 years old—they have been making music together under the moniker for the last seven years. The two have released three albums since the group’s inception—the most recent, "Remixes Compiled" (2007), features collaborations with John Herndon (Tortoise) and Lindsay Anderson (L’Atra) and tracks by Nine Inch Nails, A Perfect Circle and Apparat.

Telefon Tel Aviv’s sound ranges from technical and glitchy to sweepingly beautiful and melodic. Asked to describe his music, Cooper responds, "People usually ask what I play, and since that could be anything, I usually just say ‘electronic music.’ Most folks just smile nervously and say, ‘Cool … that’s like when the computer makes the music for you, right?’"

Looking back on his musical history, Cooper says his "family always had music playing in the house." After seeing "Krush Groove" with his best friend, Cooper says he and his friend would "sit in my backyard with a boombox and a keyboard and make tapes of us doing these really crappy rap tracks. I guess we were about 7 or 8 at that time."

The first show Cooper ever played was when his high-school band performed at the New Orleans Music Hall. Cooper explains that, "We played the night after The Lemonheads played a show and the dressing room was totally trashed. We thought we were so cool and drank the leftover Heinekens they left behind."

Cooper’s interest in music continued to grow after he finished high school. He says, "I started getting interested in electronic music…and was part of a small collective of kids that would trade music and talk about production, which included my buddy Turk who went on to form the group Belong.

"Josh had been making electronic music for some time, and I knew he could give us some tips since our stuff sounded like ass. We met with him a few times and he was very helpful.

"So I played a show a short time after that in Atlanta and met up with Scott Herren and Richard Devine. Both of those guys blew me away, and I knew I had to step it up. I figured Josh would be a great person to hook up with and called him immediately when I got home.

"It was an exciting time for electronic music, especially in America. I played [Josh] all the new stuff I had gotten and we both got really excited. That was it. Telefon Tel Aviv was born.

"We always wanted to make music that reminded us of an emotion or an experience. It’s really hard to do that.

"There is no throwaway or filler. We want everything to be at the same level. So we'd rather do less music but feel 100 percent about it all rather than just do a few we are thrilled with and a ton of OK shit to tie it all together."

Cooper and Eustis have toured the world together. "There never seems to be a dull moment," Cooper says. "We played a pretty big festival in Belgium while we were on tour with the Shitparade [Shitkatapult artists]. It’s Josh's birthday, and it just so happens that it is Miss Kitten's birthday also, who is playing in the other room. We are all having a really crazy time, and I’m just taking a break in the green room and chatting with one of the girls from Das Bierbeben. Josh and Sascha [Apparat] come in the room with towels on their heads. Josh proceeds to toss a chair aside causing no damage, but very funny. Sascha then grabs another chair and tosses it without really looking, and it goes through a full, glass door. It’s like slow motion. It crashes so loud, and everyone just freezes. They take off running, and one of the guys from the festival comes in all pissed off. We all are just sitting there like little kids going ‘I don’t know…I didn't see anything...Uh Uh?!!’ It was totally unintentional, but we sure did get an earful about it. That’s as close to anything ridiculous and rock star as I feel we will ever be involved with. Usually things are much more mellow."

The boys from Telefon Tel Aviv are hard at work on a new record and will be playing a smattering of shows as well as DJing out this year. "We really try hard to outdo ourselves and come up with something new all the time," Cooper says. "We figure when it’s just as easy as filling in the blanks and doing it by formula, we might as well just give it up."

Telefon Tel Aviv drops a DJ set at Sonotheque, 1444 West Chicago, (312)226-7600, on August 9, 10pm-2am. $5.

(2007-08-07)

Also by Hilary Rawk

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