transmit: radiation

Transmit is Tony Buck of The Necks (drums, percussion, guitar, voice), Magda Mayas (organ, clavinet, piano), Brendan Dougherty (drums, percussion), and James Welburn (electric bass). It's unpredictable and psychedelic wandering around rhythm complemented with deep and essential live instrumentation. Expanding upon the template set up by the first Transmit release, Project Transmit, Radiation extends the instrumental palette and approach to sonority and song form while retaining the power and drive of the band's initial sound. Mayas's additional psychedelic organ and keyboard sounds merge with the basic lineup of guitar, bass, and drums to fuel insistent grooves and stretch the songs into trance-like and ritualistic dimensions. Textures, instrumental combinations, and approaches more often associated with electroacoustic improvisation and free music are utilized within more conventional song forms. Long, ambient soundscapes that morph seamlessly into or out of song structures or riffs and melodies from more familiar places push this music into exciting new territory. The album even features a multi-layered, noise-hymn cover of the '80s classic "Drive" by The Cars. Buck and Dougherty contribute a strong double-drums bedrock on which the building blocks of the bass and guitar of Welburn and Buck set the scene for the swirling, dense, and hallucinogenic sonic worlds the band creates. At times dark and heavy, at others meditative and kaleidoscopic, the music nevertheless has an almost pop sensibility at its heart that makes even the most adventurous and challenging aspects of the record deeply moving and accessible.