Recommendation: Teliof - Is It?

Today I'm featuring a lovely Israeli progressive rock band called Teliof. I bought their album Is It? some time ago, on a whim, not knowing too much how they sounded like or who the lineup was. But the snippets I heard on their Myspace were enough to push me towards buying the album.

Here's the bio I wrote for them on Prog Archives:

Teliof are an Israeli band formed by Yuval Aviguy (guitars) and the lineup is made up of Lior Arinos (drums & percussions), Avshalom (Avsha) Elan (guitar & bass), Canadian vocalist Kristine Sykes (vocals & flute), Rooly Eliezerov on saxophone and Roei Remez on Keyboards. During their shows and for the recording of their first album several guest musicians have joined the band. The band says this about themselves:

"Teliof is a band with a desire to create music which is diverse, original, innovative, intriguing, instrumental, rich in melody and harmony, hard driving yet gentle and soothing with any degrees in between thrown in for good measure. They wish to distance themselves from the world of loops and samples, false pretenses and even from being categorized within a specific genre. Despite all this, they try very hard not to take their music too seriously and to remain as honest individuals who simply like what they are doing."

As Aviguy says, Teliof wants "to take the magic of simple songs and add to them the complexity of progressive music". He mentions Mike Oldfield, Genesis and Yes as personal favourites of his.

The band was formed in a rather random manner with some use of the internet. Yuval Aviguy has heard through a work colleague of Lior Arinos which in turn has met Kristine Sykes during a trip to South America. The rest of the musicians came in and out (some after getting to know them in internet forums) and the band finally settled on its sextet form.

As can be seen in the credits, they all contribute to writing the music and lyrics.

They sing in English due to their aspirations of reaching an international audience and also due to the fact that Kristine does not speak Hebrew.

Why the name Teliof? Well there is no particular meaning. Yuval says that he was basically looking for a free web domain. They started with the words Tale Of and ended up with Teliof.

Befitting Art-Rock, their music is eclectic with many references from various genres and sounds.

Their first album Is It? is currently available at http://cdbaby.com/cd/teliof

==Assaf Vestin (avestin)==

Background material taken from www.teliof.com and from the interview with the band in www.mitkadem.co.il

A little about the album:

Humour is prevalent in both the lyrics and music, as is a certain theatrical nature, enhanced by the vocals (Kristine's beautiful voice mostly but occasionally a male voice as well) and the choral backup singing. These two aspects coincide well on the album, with lush harmonies coming up often. The lovely melodies are made to sound full and solid by the chorus and keyboards work, often lead by guitar. 

There is much going on the album, particularly in the title track, which is 24 minutes long, but divided into shorter pieces. The title piece along is worth the price of the album. It's a lovely and beautiful piece encompassing various musical landscapes viewed through the band's lenses. We're offered a variety of music: from majestic and rich sounding songs to simpler tunes; the changes feel natural and the contrast enhances the virtues of each.

The other tracks are much shorter and yet full of appealing and ear catching song-writing and show the band's skills in composing shorter, simpler and concise tunes that are as exciting as their more adventurous side.

Links:
Official website (you can listen to some of the songs here)
Facebook