TeleVoid - TeleVoid music video
(Miramar 1998, VHS-NTSC, 21043)


From Aural Innovations #7 (July 1999)

TeleVoid is an interesting entity - what I guess happened is that two musicians (guitarist/keyboardist Paul Speer and Queensryche drummer Scott Rockenfield) petitioned a slew of computer animation gurus around the world to submit vignettes on various sci-fi themes. And then they went to work writing and recording music to act as a soundtrack...or perhaps vice versa. Whatever the case, the duo (with producer/director Michael Boydstun) have produced a pretty cool video game that even plays itself! There is a loose association between the 11 separate 'tracks' based on the particularly boney character 'Skully,' but the hour-long video comes across more as many individual parts rather than a coherent story.

The music of TeleVoid sounds much like Queensryche (not surprisingly), though with a strong ambient flavor due to the frequent synthesizer use. Visually-speaking, things get off to a wild start ("Murder or Self-Defense") with the "pinky ring," a gauntlet of protruding fingers impeding our progress down some "tunnel of doom" no doubt. As the "Telespy," we're asked (without actually having to participate... a couch potato's dream) to covertly fly our spacecraft into enemy territory and destroy a particular complex, or so the computerized female voice instructs. (Of course, we succeed.) The music shifts from spacey ambient stuff to hard-rockin' guitar soloing as we exit hyperspace into the theatre of operations. "Pyramid Passage" is a real highlight - a brighter, more melodic piece drifting by as we fly amongst Egyptian landscapes. "Chasing Blue Sky" is straight from the Queensryche ballad factory, and even guest Blue Jay Saunders' vocals imitate Geoff Tate perfectly. After the "Mad Doctors of Borneo" do a bit of brain surgery, we receive some dark, Stephan King-type imagery amidst tension-building incidentals. Finally, Sir Mix-a-lot makes an appearance rapping to the hip-hoppish "Mind Suck," where the evils of technology are demonstrated and we see bizarre animations of scissors and spinning cybernetic eyes. Freaky.

You can imagine TeleVoid as a heavy metal version of the movie "Tron." Along the way, the quality of the animation varies a great deal, as it appears that both amateur and professional artists submitted material. (The credits take some time to wade through.) I would imagine that most space rock fans are sci-fi/fantasy buffs, so perhaps this will give everyone something to watch after Babylon 5 goes off the air. Recommended for a rainy day.

Reviewed by Keith Henderson


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