Telepathe. — Photo by Sam Hiscox

If you happened to occasionally hang around Potion Café during its stunted youth in 2005, then it’s likely you’ve bumped into at least one of the girls that make up the band Telepathe. Both worked off and on at the little caffeinated outpost, which formerly was wedged into one of the McKibbin Street “dorm” buildings.

It was a convenient job, since they were stacked up in one of the over-populated loft spaces in the building above, hidden away in a cave of musical endeavors. The pair only worked a couple days a week and shared a room to save money as they chased after their musical dreams.

“We knew quite a few other musicians who were living similar lifestyles,” recalls Busy Gangnes. “The sacrifices seemed normal and necessary in order to make our music.”

But the starving artist motif worked out for them. After two years of toiling at low wage jobs, living on top of each other, and coordinating schedules with three other non-musician roommates to plan out rehearsal times, they now travel the globe performing and their name — which is pronounced “telepatheee” — graces the cover of prominent magazines. They’ve also received the remix treatment by a number of well known electronic artists like DJ /rupture, TMJ of !!!, and Bushwick’s own Lauren Flax.

Gangnes and her other half, Melissa Livaudais, were previously a part of rock bands like Wikkid and First Nation, and their first EP, Farewell Forest, showed those roots clearly. Although the drums were often very driven, even almost tribal, and the guitars and vocals were all reverberated and droning, it was still a guitar and drum kit band. It wasn’t until they started exploring electronic music that they began to realize their genre-defying potential. The Sinister Militia single was the bridge between that awareness and their current incarnation as electronic musicians.

“Once we started recording ourselves and making beats we found that our musical ideas and possibilities exponentially multiplied,” Gangnes explains. “We were no longer confined to what we could do with a drum kit and guitar.”

Their present sound, as evidenced by the most recent album, Dance Mother, is usually a bit dark and damaged (as always), finding wonder in the glitter of broken visions. But a nuance is now present and they paint moods with strokes containing more depth as a result of their broader sound palette. Although they frequently rely on off-key singing, throwback electronics like electro-oriented synths and 80′s drum hits, and liberal guitar use, Telepethe certainly breaks a number of genre molds. Says Gangnes: “We feel that we don’t easily fit into a genre category. Nor do we aspire to fit into a category.”

So direction will they go in next? “Heading to the dance floor. Fatter drum sounds.”

Telepathe — “In Your Line” (download via Mixtape Miestro)

Hear more local music at Bushwick Music.