Telenova

Telenova are one of those bands that feel fully formed from the first track.

The Melbourne trio came together at an APRA SongHubs camp in 2020, when filmmaker and songwriter Angeline Armstrong was paired with multi-instrumentalists and producers Edward Quinn and Joshua Moriarty. What started as a one-off session turned into a permanent project built around shadowy, sample-driven pop, trip hop undertones and a taste for cinematic storytelling.

Their debut single Bones arrived in March 2021 and landed with the confidence of a band that already knew its lane. Premiered on triple j’s Home & Hosed, it went into full rotation, picked up support across Spotify, Apple Music and community radio, and later slipped into the triple j Hottest 100 at #91, a rare feat for a first single. Reviews latched onto its mood: strings and beat work nodding to Portishead-era trip hop, lyrics circling disillusionment and obsession, Armstrong’s vocal right in the middle of that tension.

Off the back of Bones they signed to Pointer Recordings and rolled straight into their debut EP Tranquilize, a 2021 release that set the tone for the world they were building. Critics called it cinematic and surreal, a five-track run that treated each song like a scene in a bigger film. International outlets from NME to Vogue Paris, BBC6 and KCRW picked up on the band early, hearing something in the mix of noir pop, trip hop and art-house drama that cut through a crowded alt-pop field. Follow-up EP Stained Glass Love in 2022 and debut album Time Is A Flower in 2024 pushed that language further, with bolder arrangements and a stronger sense of narrative across a whole record.

A lot of that glue comes from Armstrong’s film background. She directs many of their visuals, including the Tranquilizeclip, which leans into siren mythology and underground-club noir. The band talk about songs as scenes: score-like strings, close-mic’d vocals, production details that feel more like edits than effects.

On Bones, that approach shows up in how the song keeps its centre of gravity low. The rhythm section moves with a nightclub pulse, while strings and guitar sketch out something closer to a fever dream. The lyrics sit in that headspace where you are caught between fascination and unease, the moment you realise the thing you were chasing might swallow you whole. It is a debut that still functions as a thesis statement, which is why it remains a set-closing favourite years on.

Tranquilize, the title track of their first EP, flips the perspective toward the rush of falling in love. Armstrong has described it as being pulled under by feeling, a kind of romantic hypnosis, which the band frame with live-leaning instrumentation and a slow-burn build. The siren motif runs through both the lyrics and the video, but the song never tips into pastiche. It sits somewhere between alt-pop, R&B and trip hop, and shows how the trio can move from widescreen drama to something more intimate without losing that sense of atmosphere.

When Telenova play Bones and Tranquilize in the same set, you get a neat snapshot of their arc. One is the first page of the story, all haunted glamour and unease, the other is seduction and surrender, written with the benefit of a few more miles on the clock. Both tracks show why this band has become a fixture on festival posters and international playlists: they make songs that feel like scenes you can step into, detailed enough to linger in your head long after the last chorus fades.

“We were all kind of in other projects at the time, but we just thought we’d just keep hanging out and writing together because it seemed like a nice thing to do. And then I think eventually one of you was just like, “I think we’re a band now.” Just defined the relationship and [made] it official,” says frontwoman Angeline Armstrong.

Telenova’s members were cut and paste from all corners of the creative world, but they piece together to create something incredibly elegant.

Lead vocalist Angeline Armstrong is an accomplished film director, screenwriter, and singer-songwriter signed to BMG Recordings.

For 6 years, multi-instrumentalist and producer Edward Quinn was one half of the recently split dance duo, Slum Sociable, with Quinn putting his full speed into Telenova in 2021.

Joshua Moriarty has shone as a guitarist in several projects, most notably, the electronic act Miami Horror.

As a filmmaker, Angeline directed the stunning music video for “Tranquilize”, with help from a grant from the Australian Council for the Arts. That grant also allowed them to produce their debut EP, set for release in winter.

“It’s really beautiful that those two things can converge now. I think it’s really special to be able to direct something that I’ve been there from the first day that the song was written and the first day the idea of the song kind of came into being and then seeing it all the way through to the visual expression of that is pretty special,” she says.