Austin Sound

We love Switchburn’s live videos, and their tri-camera approach is even better when they direct their lenses to bands like Transmography. Hell, it would probably take more then three POV’s to capture the mesmerizing percussive force of the duo. “Exoskeleton,” filmed back in July at Emo’s, is an excellent example of Transmography’s ever-evolving sound, the synth and drum sparring punctuated by shouted vocals.

A good show bill is like a well-rounded breakfast. By well rounded of course, I mean pancakes, french toast, waffles and 8 pieces of bacon all on one plate (or platter). Needless to say, there’s only one thing that excites me more than a platter of food, and that’s the show tonight at Club Deville.

8/3/07
If you’re going to need a soundtrack for world destruction, Transmography might just be your group, as the duo proves on their recent video for “Calerpa.” Made with the help of director Scott Wiser on a budget of $50, Star Wars this ain’t, but it’s pretty priceless in its own right. And we have no idea really what’s happening at the end, but you can decide for yourself.

Video: Transmography - “Calerpa”

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This week we are excited to debut a new column on Austin Sound, “Music Is Happiness.” Each month, Noah Mass will feature what’s been turning his stubborn head locally, be it old garage 45s or some of Austin’s best underappreciated artists. Noah is tough to impress by nature, so you can bet that if something’s caught his ear, it’s worth hearing. After all, music is happiness, but good music is bliss. To inaugurate the column, Noah takes a look at local instrumental duo Transmography, who recently released Polydactyly on 8088 Records. You can also catch Noah on the radio every Sunday night from 11pm-12am on KVRX 91.7.

I think I was trolling around the internet, searching for music to download off of MySpace “tribute” sites, and I somehow found a site set up by two Austin musicians, Michael Frazier and James Evans, who perform under the name Transmography. Along with one absolutely embarrassing video that they’d posted on the site showing them playing to an empty coffee shop somewhere in Oklahoma, were a selection of tracks that, quite honestly, I’d never heard anything like before. One tune was called “Bhopal,” like the chemical plant in India that caused all that environmental devastation. I wasn’t really sure how the title connected to what I was hearing, which sounded for all the world like somebody scraping a piece of metal along another piece of metal in a syncopated, almost “catchy” rhythm, before the track descended into random drum beats, bass noises, and computer manipulated whooshes. Another tune, “IceCreamManFromJapan,” began with a murky bass thrum before exploding into an almost anthemic burst of drums and guitar. It was the sort of thing that Einsturzende Neubauten might have tried two decades ago if they’d had a gift for melody and a sense of humor (which they didn’t).