Rating: NNNN
I’ve never been all too clear about exactly what “freak folk” means. Maybe kinda peaceful and pretty, but also kinda freaky and jarring? Perhaps, and if you want to add “haunting, atmospheric and ethereal,” then the NYC duo composed of Busy Gangnes and Melissa Livaudais may be ready to give all those crazies like Castanets and Devendra Banhart a run for their money. On the four-track Forest EP, the band switches up from the Mogwai-esque melodic, tribal opener Pet Communicator to serious weird land on Envoy, a jumbled track of rumbling, spastic drum rolls and crashing percussion under Livaudais’s best impression of an even crazier Björk. Telepathe have a knack for atmosphere and for allowing their work to unravel slowly, but never deliberately distract from the immediacy of the songs.