Once upon a time, in the comparatively simpler dark ages of the 1970s, a group of musicians from Akron, Ohio, emerged, presenting a provocative ethos about the “devolution” of humanity. They forged a playfully intense musical persona, fusing bouncy synthpop grooves with a ragged-yet-rigid punk rock sound. They are called Devo, and perhaps the most compelling thing about them is their manifesto about a society in perpetual regressive free fall, which is amplified and belied by their forward-thinking music and appearance. Devo’s subversive message has likely eluded the masses over the decades, but maybe it seeps in subliminally, since the band continues to captivate audiences.
Telehealth, a group of musicians from Seattle, Washington, are a modern-day band that is also guided by a particular ideology; in contrast to Devo, their thesis seems to be one of inquiry rather than assertion. On Telehealth’s Sub Pop debut, Green World Image, there is a sense of interrogation into the savage absurdities inherent in current economic and social realities. There might even be a tone of resignation to the paradox of, in their words, “the anxiety- and profit-inducing system Telehealth inhabits and critiques at the same time”.
In other words, Telehealth are bemused by, but also uncomfortable with, the bitter incongruity of benefiting from the rapacious system that they lambaste. Their new album, Green World Image, is a vehicle for the group to purge their demons and reconcile themselves to a hypocritical existence. We gotta make a living, after all, and this is the system we have, for better or worse.
Telehealth‘s electronically driven music has an anxious edge that mirrors the anxious age we live in, and, lyrically, is rife with enough ironic humor to at least temporarily alleviate the potentially soul-crushing angst we all feel. Take, for example, “Cool Job”, a clever and satirical skewering of corporate jobs and how they flatten self-worth even as they claim to define it: “We pay you in vibes / Plagiarism scam / Copy paste and jam / Carhartt Dickie clan / Sprinter van to Burning Man.”
Or what about “Donor Country”? This song, a parody of our cause-saturated society, is as kinetic as a caffeinated toddler, with its shout-spoken-word, funky, frantic beat, spacey synths, and slashy guitars. The guitars, by the way, have a clear Television and Joy Division-by-way-of-Interpol vibe on songs like “Muralcide” and “Silver Spoon”. “Silver Spoon”, with its Mark Twainian pronouncement, “I cannot afford / Death and taxes anymore,” is drenched in millennial sarcasm as it details the pitfalls of various forms of debt.
While Telehealth may invoke obvious comparisons to the likes of the B-52s or Devo, I’m hearing some underground influences like Bush Tetras, too. There are also No Wave underpinnings on Green World Image, which may make Telehealth less commercially viable than their classic-era new wave analogues.
Telehealth’s more lo-fi approach doesn’t mean they won’t achieve longevity. As long as they continue to synthesize disparate influences in an evolutionary way, and meet the moment with timely topics that entertain while validating our collective disenchantment, they may even emerge as leading voices in the eternal struggle to transcend tyranny.
It seems certain, after all, that dystopian impulses among the dastardly elite will continue to give Telehealth and like-minded bands plenty of lyrical fodder to feast on. Green World Image is an album of angular grooves and twitchy rhythms, nostalgic and futuristic at once, but mostly looking askance at our modern-day neoliberal nightmare as we doomscroll ourselves to oblivion.