A Dó review: Telefís album is a moving final offering from the late Cathal Coughlan
Teilifís: Cathal Coughlan and Garret Jacknife Lee.
When Cathal Coughlan joined the over Zoom last January to discuss his new project, Telefís, he revealed he and collaborator Garret ‘Jacknife’ Lee had already recorded a second album which they hoped to release shortly. Coughlan was full of enthusiasm and so his death in May came as a shock.
As the voice, face and molten personality of Microdisney and Fatima Mansions, the Corkman achieved too much for A Dó to be considered a swan song or any kind of definitive final statement. It is, however, a haunting farewell from an artist who combined rage, wit and classic songwriting — topped off with his luxuriant singing voice.
Those vocals are front and centre throughout A Dó, which, as with their debut, A hAon is a striking marriage of Coughlan’s taut ballad writing and Lee’s quicksilver production, which here comes with a retro sensibility. Thematically it takes up the baton from that first album, which painted a portrait of pre-1990s Ireland as a mix of Father Ted and Eastern Bloc purgatory, with Catholicism taking the place of Communism.
Kraftwerk are an influence, from the vocodorised 'Tel-e-fís' with which the project starts to the fusillade of bleeps and chilly grooves that drive the record on. If anything it’s the busier and more approachable of the two LPs; there is a wonderful pop moment in 'Space Is Us', where Coughlan reunites with his old Microdisney foil Sean O’Hagan (as Lee piles on the early 1990s rave beats).
The guest list also features Manchester punk funkateers A Certain Ratio, their “chilling in the name of” grooves the perfect backdrop for Coughlan's Scott Walker intonation on 'Stock Photo Guy'.
The star-wattage is cranked up further as Will Sergeant of Echo and the Bunnymen plays guitar on the spritzy 'Age of Cling' (which suggests a dystopian Microdisney), and Jah Wobble contributes to the hypnotic Circling Over Shannon (where he must vie for attention with an old sample of Éamon de Valera).
Circling themes of emigration, cultural stifling and the dead hand of the Church, Teilifís is a deep plunge down the cathode ray tube of 20th-century Ireland. A bit like Bowie’s Blackstar, as a record, it is impossible to divorce it from the context of Coughlan’s recent passing. As an eccentric pop album, it is sublime. As a eulogy for one of Cork’s greatest songwriters, it is, by the very fact of its existence, deeply moving.
- A Dó is available on CD in good record stores from Fri, Oct 7. Vinyl copies will be released Nov 25. Outlets for the purchase of digital downloads include Bandcamp, telefis.bandcamp.com
