TELENOVA Share new single & video ‘Tranquilize’

Melbourne three-piece Telenova are proud to share their brand new single ‘Tranquilize’. Premiered overnight by triple j’s Good Nights with Bridget Hustwaite, ‘Tranquilize’ arrives with a stunning video directed by Telenova frontwoman Angeline Armstrong.

Assembled by Chris Walla (Death Cab For Cutie) at an APRA SongHubs writing camp in early 2020, Telenova combines the alluring vocals of multi-disciplined creative Angeline Armstrong, alongside the refined musicality of Edward Quinn (Slum Sociable) and Joshua Moriarty (Miami Horror).

‘Tranquilize’ was written in its entirety on the first day of the APRA SongHubs where the trio met for the first time. Armstrong shares – “I was actually flicking through a thesaurus and the word ‘Tranquilize’ jumped out at me, it just rang so nicely on the tongue and was so inherently visceral. I was humming gibberish over the hypnotic Rhodes chords that Josh had laid down, and we heard what sounded like ‘Poseidon’s on the water’ – it was the first time in a writing session with Ed and Josh, and the first time I’d been in a writing session where a poetic, literary lyric idea like that wasn’t shunned and coined as ‘unrelatable’.  It resonated. We followed the thread, playing into Siren mythology as a metaphor for falling in love – the power of attraction to transfix and tranquilize you.”

On directing the video for ‘Tranquilize’ she explains – “I wanted to capture the world of the song in a Lynchian-inspired dreamscape – starry-eyed and a little unhinged – but like, David Lynch meets Gucci. Leaning heavily into the lyrical metaphor of Siren mythology of Tranquilize, we formed this story of a Siren-on-the-run, masquerading as a jazz singer in a dingy, nautical underground club, as a kind of introduction to the whole Telenova universe. I grew up in Williamstown and on the way to school, would drive past this towering building that was a standing replica of the Titanic ship. We ended up shooting the clip inside the Titanic – turns out they do theatre restaurant shows there and the floors move to replicate the motion of the water and a sinking ship and everything. The cast & crew on the clip were a combination of new and long-time collaborator creatives that I’ve worked with in film. Daniel Bolt, won ‘Gold’ at the Australian Cinematographers Society Awards for his work as Director of Photography. Everyone brought a slice of their own creativity to the clip – I’m so proud of what everyone brought to the picture.”

‘Tranquilize’ arrives hot on the heels of the band’s sold-out single tour in support of their debut single ‘Bones’. ‘Bones’ was added to full rotation on triple j and received support from Spotify (New Music Friday AUNZ, Indie Arrivals, Broad Chords), Apple Music (Heaps Indie, Alt Pop, New In Indie, New Music Daily) and Amazon (Australia Now, Breakthrough Australia), as well as community radio across the country. ‘Bones’ has stayed consistently in the top 10 most played tracks on AMRAP’s metro chart since its release.