To celebrate London-based label Fantasy Love releasing a five-track EP of long-lost '80s material by Seattle funk/R&B group Teleclere, leader Tony Benton and others will be performing their lushly seductive, soulful songs at Columbia City's Rumba Notes Lounge Saturday, April 20. In addition, there'll be a listening session for the Fantasy Love EP, which includes the title track and four previously unreleased cuts, and a set by DJ Supreme La Rock, who included Teleclere's "Steal Your Love" on Light in the Attic's Wheedle's Groove - Seattle Funk, Modern Soul & Boogie: Volume II 1972-1987 comp.
The reissue was catalyzed in 2017 after a popular London club DJ happened upon the obscure limited-edition "Fantasy Love" single from 1982, and then began caning it in sets. The reaction was so strong that the future Fantasy Love label boss who heard the track sleuthed for info behind it, which led to him contacting Benton to re-release the song—which he loved so much, he named his company after it. Fantasy Love Records will also be celebrating the EP's release with events in LA and London.
In a press release, Benton—who is currently station manager of RainierAvenueRadio.World—said:
The Fantasy Love EP documents music from the early stages of my career that I recorded when I was 19-24 years old, 1979-1984. My goal was to try and create music. Hopefully people would listen and like it. If not, I still enjoyed creating, playing multiple instruments and expressing, writing, arranging and producing and not having major success.
In particular black radio never seemed to dig my music. Interestingly, white audiences did. At the time that was disappointing. I stopped writing. I didn't touch an instrument for 30 years. I didn't even mention being a musician as part of my history. I became a radio personality, among other things.
It's pretty incredible that there is interest in music that I created 30-35 years ago. Not surprising that it's happening in Europe, where there is more acceptance of music broadly and less expectation about how you should sound as a black artist. The whole music career was a past I had left behind... never did I think it would be resurrected!
For this show, Teleclere will include Benton (vocals, bass), Ernest Bernard Thomas (keyboards, vocals), Tony Wilson (drums, vocals), Roger Evans (keyboards), Thaddeus Turner (guitar), Curtis Henderson (bass), and Stacey Israel (vocals). The show will be live streamed on RainierAvenueRadio.World.
