Transtilla — Transtilla III

Transtilla themselves label side A of the release the “stormy” one, and there is little sonic evidence through the three tracks that comprise this first half of their record to refute the claim. “Ferlern”, the opening cut, is a foreboding prelude to say the least, amassing an ominous drone on the way to shadowy realms with little hope of a saving light, either harmonically or affectively. The long, concluding “song” on this inclement side, “All Love Lost”, begins with a noisy jangle, like a prolonged snippet from Sonic Youth’s 1997 experimental SYR 2 (coincidentally, the one in the series with Dutch titles), and then mellows out into a smoother plane of gloomy immanence, finally arriving at a few shrieking high notes drowning beneath a sea of white noise. 

 

Side B is supposedly the “calm after the storm”, with the caveat (one hopes), that this is very much dependent on each listener’s idea of “calm”. “Petre de la Meuse” is a breathtaking tour de force of jangly guitars atop a landscape of ambient drones, building on one another, expertly mixed by Transtilla, to lend the track a deeply organic totality that moves in broken unison, unlike the disparate assemblages found on side A. You might be fooled into believing that there is some semblance of peace on the horizon, until the final track, “Sketch for Paul”, an ambient threnody if ever there were one. It is a “sketch” after all, the outlines and hashmarks that define a body or figure, whose core is suspiciously absent. A fitting tribute to a departed friend, and a mood both haunting and piercing that does not so much tie a bow on the album as lay its constituent parts bare, for all to hear.

 

For fans of Transtilla’s other work, drone and ambient guitar music made with a little help from their synthesis buddies, this is a poignant, pitch-perfect release. There is little false hope or comfort to be found, but the correctness in this remarkable work – its ethereal concreteness – is all the promise anyone might need.  To find out more