The six-piece Lincoln band’s avant-garde funk style was likened to 23 Skidoo, Chakk and the Fall, but was always a unique mix of disparate elements including modern jazz, funk, noise, shouted vocals and found sounds, that was exciting and often chaotic. French Girls is the most immediately commercial of the four songs on the 12″ single, with a sung/spoken/shouted vocal line over a grinding funk riff and irresistible hookline. The Same Thing, Mrs Brown (The Clown) and Icebox are classic Telephones, with insistent rhythms, squally sax sounds, and weird, anguished vocals. An awesome sound from one of the truly individual British bands of the 80s.
Written and produced by 4,000,000 Telephones
Recorded and mixed at Bunker Studios
Design by Andie, Cath, Charlotte, Daisy and Tony