Telstar Ponies has been played on NTS shows including Simon Parris, with Shizuka first played on 19 May 2025.

After David Keenan, (guitar, vocals) departed from 18 Wheeler in 1994, he formed the Telstar Ponies in Glasgow, Scotland, with singer Rachel Devine, Gavin Laird (guitar, vocals), and former Teenage Fanclub drummer Brendan O'Hare. Originally viewed by some critics as a weak knock-off of Teenage Fanclub, however from the singles Maps and Starcharts in 1994, Her Name & Not even Starcrossed In 1995, to their their first album, In the Space of a Few Minutes their sound developed into something much darker, denser and more experemental. With their second LP, 1996's Voices From the New Music, the band continued to develop the experimental themes, not bound by any genre boundaries. The group's intense, frequently infuriating and excellent live performances, often involving improvisation helped inspire post-rock acts such as Mogwai & Godspeed You Black Emperor!. When O'Hare and Laird left the band in 1997 to form Macrocosmica Telstar Ponies stopped recording; instead, they unleashed side projects like Phantom Engineer, lonecop, Fiend & Rainspies.

The group reunited in 1999, added bassist Raymond Prior to their lineup and recorded an album's worth of new material, but this was never released. The band gradually drifted apart. Devine, Laird, and Prior went on to form The Porch Song Anthology.