Pitchfork

[Posted Wednesday, October 15th, 2003 04:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

Chicago electronic artists Telefon Tel Aviv will unleash their second LP, Map of What is Effortless, via Hefty Records on January 27th. The album is named after a 1978 piece by Italian surrealist/primitivist painter Francesco Clemente which depicts an open hand with an animal figure poised on the tip of each finger. It's kind of a Siegfried and Roy type of thing.

The first single from the record, "My Week Beats Your Year," will appear in college radio rotation this fall. Map is being described as "deconstructed R&B;" using laptop glitches alongside soulful vocals and a 30-piece orchestra. Fittingly, Telefon Tel Aviv has toured with Godspeed You! Black Emperor in the past. How the hell do you transport that many people and all that gear? By blimp? Ocean liner? The tracklist:

01 When it Happens It Moves All By Itself
02 I Lied
03 My Week Beats Your Year
04 Bubble and Spike
05 Map of What is Effortless
06 Nothing is Worth Losing That
07 What It Is Without The Hand That Wields It
08 What it Was Will Never Again
09 At the Edge of the World You Will Still Float

Telefon Tel Aviv is comprised of Joshua Eustis and Charles Cooper. Hefty released their debut, Fahrenheit Fair Enough, in 2001 (in all fairness, they did shop the album around to Glad and Ziploc, but went with Hefty in the end for their durability and superb tear resistance). Telefon Tel Aviv has also contributed a remix to Nine Inch Nails' Things Falling Apart EP, and collaborated with NIN guitarist Danny Lohner to remix David Bowie, A Perfect Circle and Eminem. Spending all that time with Trent Reznor and clan, I'm surprised that their new record isn't entitled Un Chien Andalou, with a picture of someone slicing their eyeball with a razor on the cover. Telefon Tel Aviv is planning a tour to support the new album, but only have a couple dates scheduled at the present time:

11-06 Austin, TX - Antone's
11-08 Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle (w/ Amon Tobin)