I sometimes wonder whether music can really be said to bring out the best in me. Under normal circumstances I'm a fairly reasonable human being, prepared to at least hear out the other person's side of the argument before getting disproportionately wound up and monologuing at them for half an hour. But when I review records I turn into something of a bigoted fascist for whom the mere sight of the words "ambient" or "chilled out" on a press release is ample reason to hunt down the band involved and execute them for being traitors to the Shining Path of Righteousness. This clearly didn't bode well for the both ambient and chilled-out press release of Telepopmusik, and I do think it's important that you know that my judgement is therefore far from unprejudiced.

But, I mean, really: what the hell kind of mithering blithering dithering tepid washed out pathetic excuse for a song is this? My first instinct is to fill the whole review with phonetic expressions of disgust such as "faugh", "urgh" and possibly "pleh". My second instinct is to go and wash my ears out with Domestos. I'm not against the concept of beautiful synthesised soundscapes and delicate electronic pop gems - I have a recurring Saint Etienne habit. But when faced with such tripe as this, this utterly soulless and drab horror of a background noise which sounds like Ian Duncan Smith (remember him?) turned on a synthesiser and left it running; which gives the impression that a masseur somewhere is still frantically seeking her stolen relaxation CD, I just want to weep in despair at the irredeemable mediocrity of which the human race is capable.

Pleh.