Silently influential and consistently obscure, the Telescopes formed in Burton upon Trent, England in 1986, starting off as a noise rock band, then becoming shoegazers, then dream poppers, and later displaying electronics and avant-garde tendencies. Over a long, interesting career mostly spent out of the spotlight, the group's exploratory spirit produced numerous albums that rarely sounded like each other, swinging wildly from the muted acoustic melancholy and paisley-patterned rock of their 1992 self-titled album to the dark, hypnotic psychedelia of 2023's Of Tomorrow.