INTERVIEW: telly
Shlee & Mix, the Brooklyn-based indie duo known as telly, met in college and bonded over a shared love of music. Inspired by the digital media surrounding them during the pandemic, telly crafted a sonic atmosphere that is both familiar and otherworldly, blending elements of electronic pop, shoegaze, and dream pop.
telly recently released two singles, offering a tantalizing glimpse of their debut EP, EPISODE 1, set to release on October 11. The two tracks, “BLINK” and “Arena Gates,” whisk their listeners away to a kaleidoscopic tapestry of digital sound. Noisescape sat down to chat with telly to learn more about the inspiration for their latest singles, hear details about their upcoming EP, and what we can expect next from this dynamic duo.
Photo by Jenny Alice Watts
How did you come up with the name ‘telly?’
SHLEE: telly was the name of a friend's playlist that we liked and took it [laughs]. Another aspect is that I like how British people call TV “watching telly;” I just think it's cute and figured we could do some fun wordplay with it.
What is your favorite part of being an artist, and what’s been the most challenging or your least favorite part?
SHLEE: The best part is collaborating and creating something – to get the stuff stuck in your head, pull it out, and have an audio version of your thoughts. I tend to write by putting out a melody first, filling it in with words, and then realizing what it’s about. So I kind of like that aspect, too. It's like I get to learn a bit more about myself.
MIX: I like being able to mess around with things sound and music-wise and then land on something that feels exciting. It's a fun way to express what I feel, and it’s cool to assign that feeling to that moment and re-listen to it. And playing live is just so much fun; we love being able to do that. My least favorite part is probably social media and making content. Sometimes, it's fun, but it is a whole other thing we know we have to do.
SHLEE: I think I always say the most challenging thing is balancing everyday life. We have this kind of second job on the side, which is so fun, and we love doing it, but I think it’s hard to have the energy to pour yourself into multiple things.
MIX: Another thing I don't love doing is giving away what each song is actually about. I feel like so many of the songs I love, I completely misinterpret what they're about, and when I find out later, the song is kind of no longer as exciting. I don't know – sometimes it feels wrong to give it away.
SHLEE: Yeah, you wanna keep it vague sometimes.
MIX: But we do kind of have to show our cards; that’s a huge part of releasing music.
You mentioned loving live performances. Is there a dream venue or festival you’d like to perform at?
SHLEE: Yeah, definitely. We're huge fans of music festivals, and both grew up going to them. The holy grail of festivals to me is Glastonbury. So I think the ultimate dream would be to play at Glasto for sure. And then there's a billion venues that we love and love to play at.
MIX: The big goal is to fall into the festival circuit.
Can you tell us about the creative process for your single “BLINK”?
MIX: We actually remember the day we made “BLINK” because a festival or something was happening along the street outside the apartment where we made it. People were dancing in the street while we worked on it, so it was very memorable. But the instrumental part, I just picked up a guitar and played two chords and thought it was cool. Then we sat down, and the hook just immediately came out. So it was one of those perfect moments, and then it was two years of tweaks, edits, and rewrites.
Why did you incorporate the cafe conversation sound into the track?
SHLEE: So that sound idea originally came from one of my favorite things– when you're at a gathering of some sort, and you leave to go to the bathroom, and when you walk back, you hear the sound of people talking kind of far away, and you're reentering back into that. It’s a quiet moment, but you can still hear all the noise far away. And I don’t know, I’ve always really liked that, and we decided to incorporate it somehow into our music and ended up in two of the songs.
How do you want your listeners to feel when they watch the “BLINK” music video?
SHLEE: Initially, the concept was supposed to be like you're getting home from somewhere when we enter the car. We wanted to bring the audience in, to have them move through the space with us and bring that energy. That song has a cool vibe that reminds me of driving. I like to listen to it while driving around, so that's my ideal listening situation for that song.
Let’s talk about your latest single, “Arena Gates!” How does the song’s title fit with the track?
MIX: When we make songs, we usually write down a word, the date when we save the file, and something that the song feels like. For this one, the first thing you hear is this strange glitch rhythm. And in my head, I heard that coming out of massive speakers of an arena. Playing live for a lot of people is sort of the end goal for where that song ends up. So that's where the name came from, and I just wrote that down. Usually, if a title seems unrelated to the song, we'll change it, but we both liked the ring of that one, so we kept it.
I love the contrast between the glitchy synth for the intro and the violin strings in the outro. What was the thought process there?
MIX: The strings are in the second verse, the ending, and the outro. In the process of listening to the song a billion times as we were working on it, one time, I was listening to the second verse – and I think I was walking around the city – and heard a lot of other noise, and in my head came the idea of strings being in that part. Then, when we got to the mixing stage, the engineer made an error when he was exporting the song and moved the strings back 30 seconds, so they played at the end. We realized we actually loved that as an outro when we heard it. So that was a cool little accident that happened in the last stage.
Sorry, Mix, I know you don’t love to show all of your cards, but is there an overall theme or concept of your debut EP, EPISODE 1?
MIX: [laughs] No, I love that question because it's a bigger picture.
SHLEE: Yeah, a lot of the stuff I write about is very much about avoidance and different ways that can show up. And our sound is super digital and influenced by technology and its glitches. Like when you use Bluetooth headphones in a crowded area, and they cut out or drop and shift in pitch. That kind of weird thing, that quick minute, is what we really like and are influenced by. It's a bit dreamy, so it's kind of escapist, too. That ties the whole thing together in the sense that there's a lot I think people are trying to avoid– and I think technology is both helping that and making it worse.
MIX: Another theme that ties it together is just being overwhelmed by digital experiences and the general online landscape we live in. A lot of the sounds on the EP show that thematically and sonically, but it’s really just a piece of what we are as a band right now. So this episode is kind of just the first offering of what we can do, and the next will be different offerings.
Are there any exciting plans for telly within the next year?
MIX: We're putting together a release show and still locking all those details down. We want to put a bunch of surprises and special guests in there and make it a really special show. And ideally, play a couple more shows before the end of the year. As the new year rolls in, we’ll shift our focus toward the newer songs in the state that these four songs were in a year and a half ago. Except, hopefully, we move through them a bit faster now that we've gotten into a bit of a rhythm.