| TRANSMSSION | SUBLIMITY |
released october 2008

this is one amazing ride from a four-headed creative monster on heat that manages
to blend musical beauty, torrential passion
and sheer malevolence, sometimes in the
space of one track...

First sound on opening track Albion is
Youth’s unmistakable heaving bass before
Big Paul Ferguson steams in with the heaviest drums in the business. Once the original
Killing Joke rhythm section is underway on a crunching post-punk funk vamp, Simon Tong’s guitar appears in shrapnel clusters lashed by
Tim Bran’s unearthly synth. Musical fireworks might be expected from a line-up like this and Sublimity, the second album by Transmission, doesn’t disappoint.

The pedigree is impeccable: Youth’s production credentials, his time with Paul in the Joke before ahead-of-its-time superfunk ensemble Brilliant. Simon’s stint in the Verve line-up which made Urban Hymns then Gorillaz and Damon Albarn and Paul Simenon’s The Good, The Bad & The Queen. Dreadzone co-founder Tim Bran plays with Subsonar and The Orb.

The group started gestating after Youth and Simon became friends during the Urban Hymns sessions, which the former co-produced. Tim entered the fray then, Paul in Spring 2005 after he met Youth at a Malicious Damage party and heard some demos. Three months later they recorded debut album Beyond Light in three days at London’s legendary Olympic studios.

With the line-up always busy on respective other projects it’s taken nearly two years to emerge with a follow-up but the results are a controlled explosion of disparate musical styles often reaching jawdropping peaks, like the emotional skyscraper of Triple Threat and its mix of dubbed-out effects, guitar resonance and Paul’s inimitable tribal rumble. Rarely does a band manage to blend musical beauty, torrential passion and sheer malevolence, sometimes in the space of one track, influences running riot, assimilated into the group’s mass organic psyche before being spewed out in glorious technicolour.

For instance, cinematic Giorgio Moroder melodies on the atmospheric Dance Alone, keening psychedelia on the stately You Hold The Fire, Bo Diddley beats under the spiralling guitars of Goodbye Old Friend and Oh Sleep coming in on a classic rock guitar riff before taking off on another of the flights which seem to be this group’s trademark. On some tracks Youth adds vocals, taking Confusion in a panoramic astral rock direction with shades of Bowie while Opium Head turns into a soaring hallucino-ballad. By the mindblowing home stretch guitar-thrash of Absinthium it’s apparent that this has been one amazing ride from a four-headed creative monster on heat - a special Transmission indeed.

MD636: SUBLIMITY
tracklisting
01: albion
02: goodbye old friend
03: you hold the fire
04: dance alone
05: opium head
06: oh sleep
07: triple threat
08: confusion
09: absinthium
total running time 48m 29s

also available:
the ep, noctolucent, on cd & 12" vinyl
the first album, beyond light

if you’d like an unreleased free track then download this FREE DOWNLOAD
it's called vile temper and colour coordinated compassion or elephant for short...