It’s amazing just how much the ghost of Radiohead hangs over contemporary song based music. As with any influential artist, their reach is a neutral fact. Whether emulation or inspiration is the response is up to the artists in their shadow. The former logically results in diminishing returns, the latter is what any great artist has done with their own respective influences. Telescopeland can be seen as this entire dichotomy in microcosm.
As a studio enterprise, Uphill Racer is German multi-instrumentalist/producer Oliver Lichtl. He flits between the two responses – inspiration and emulation – across the album. When he relies on chittering kick drums, acoustic guitars or atmospheric synths and mournful singing, as on ‘When The Phone Rings All Day’ or ‘Supernatural Powers’, it’s definitely emulation. Lichtl’s problems here are that he does not have the voice control of Thom Yorke, nor the ear for memorable melody. He ends up coming off overly earnest and unintentionally amateur. Much better when he lets things be a little quirkier. ‘Man At Arms’ adds ukelele to a simple, pulsing drum machine, along with simpler melodic excursions and is immediately much more attractive and memorable. Or ‘Night By Your Side’s Knife-esque electronic kettle drum melody and lullaby singing. At these moments, you can hear Lichtl’s own artistic voice, and it’s worth paying attention.
When reverting to emulation, Telescopeland is still very listenable, but feels underwhelming. When he gets it right, Oliver Lichtl’s music is a moving enterprise. Uphill Racer could be worth keeping an eye on.
Adrian Elmer
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