Telex

Telex originated in 1978 as a Brussels-based trio of seasoned players, much like Yellow Magic Orchestra, and introduced a luminous, forward-looking electronic aesthetic built on synthesizers and treated voices while simultaneously drawing from earlier pop sources. International recognition outpaced domestic notice for the Belgian act. Their unhurried reading of “Rock Around the Clock,” the rockabilly standard made famous by Bill Haley, reached the U.K. Top 40; shortly afterward two further tracks appeared on Billboard’s American club survey. Those singles were led by “Moskow Diskow,” a buoyant, turbocharged reworking of Kraftwerk’s “Trans-Europe Express,” and “Euro-Vision,” the deliberately banal Belgian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 1980. Following the pair of early albums that housed these tracks, Telex shifted toward wholly original compositions, first inviting Sparks’ Ron and Russell Mael to supply lyrics for Sex (1981) and later resuming self-contained writing for Wonderful World (1984) and Looney Tunes (1988). After several remix collections produced by the house and techno artists they had influenced, How Do You Dance? (2006) concluded an extended absence with fresh irreverent covers and became the group’s first Belgian chart entry. Marc Moulin’s death in 2008 effectively closed the band’s run, yet Dan Lacksman and Michel Moers subsequently supervised reissues that included the self-titled boxed set of studio albums.

Each member already possessed an extensive résumé when Moulin, Lacksman, and Moers assembled Telex in Brussels in 1978. As composer and keyboardist, Moulin had steered the progressive jazz-funk outfit Placebo for most of the preceding decade. Lacksman, an expert programmer and synthesist, had issued numerous projects under his own name as well as Electronic System, Electronic Butterflies, and Syne Wave. Moers, active as writer, arranger, singer, and guitarist, had participated in Nuit Câline à la Villa Mon Rêve and contributed solo pieces to a compilation that also featured recordings by Moulin and Ariel Kalma. By year’s end the trio delivered their debut single for RKM/Vogue, a lighthearted cover of Les Chats Sauvages’ early French rock-and-roll number “Twist à Saint-Tropez.” The parent album, Looking for Saint Tropez, arrived the following year and included another playful remake, “Rock Around the Clock.” A licensing arrangement with Sire propelled the track to number 36 in the U.K. that August. The brisk “Moskow Diskow” followed, matching the same Billboard club-chart peak (then titled Disco Top 100). Looking for Saint Tropez also contained a measured rendition of Plastic Bertrand’s “Ça Plane Pour Moi,” another Sire-licensed Belgian recording.

At their manager’s urging, Telex represented Belgium at the 1980 Eurovision Song Contest in The Hague, deliberately aiming for last place with “Euro-Vision.” Sire’s American promotional 12-inch paired the song with a jittery cover of Sly & the Family Stone’s “Dance to the Music,” returning the group to the club chart. Both selections appeared on Neurovision, an album that contained a larger share of new material than the debut; among those tracks was “Tour de France,” a sprightly piece that differed sharply in tone and text from Kraftwerk’s later single of the same name. For the third album, Sex, issued in Belgium on a separate label and with limited external licensing, the group chose original songs whose words were co-written by Ron and Russell Mael. Wonderful World and Looney Tunes, released on varying labels in 1984 and 1988, were largely self-produced; the latter yielded a further Billboard club-chart placement with “Peanuts.” Throughout the decade Telex also issued one-off 7-inch side projects such as Darcman and the Flippers (both featuring Moulin and Lacksman) and the Kiliwax’s (a collective pseudonym). Moers additionally composed and arranged pop and children’s music as Victor Szell and released a single as Z-Moor-Z.

Nearly two decades elapsed before another Telex album, yet I Don’t Like Music (1998) and I (Still) Don’t Like Music: Remixes, Vol. 2 (1999) confirmed their dance credentials through reworkings by Carl Craig, I:Cube, Maurice Fulton, and Morgan Geist of Metro Area. In 2006 the trio concluded their hiatus with the final studio LP, How Do You Dance?, mixing original songs with characteristically playful readings of material associated with Ritchie Valens, Canned Heat, and Sparks. Moulin, whose career had begun in the early 1960s and later encompassed production, journalism, and radio, succumbed to throat cancer two years afterward. Occasional anthologies and other catalog reissues appeared during the 2010s. Lacksman and Moers, both remaining active beyond the group, partnered with Mute Records in the following decade for a broad reissue program that opened with the introductory This Is Telex in 2021 and concluded with the comprehensive boxed set Telex in 2023.