Alchemy 2025
Broadcast from the intersection of PORCUPINE TREE and BURNT BELIEF, alien messages find a groovy angle to get their point across.
CHRIS MAITLAND –
The Baldock Transmission
The English town of Baldock has quite a history of sending and receiving signals – in the early 19th century, there was a shutter telegraph station; a hundred years later, a station of the Imperial Wireless Chain which made the first radiotelephone call to the States; and in the late 20th, a center of laser research – yet none of those were as entertaining as six improvs preserved for posterity in local studio by this unlikely trio. When bassist Colin Edwin and drummer Chris Maitland dusted off their rhythmic telepathy after a two-decade hiatus, another Transatlantic link had to be established so that the former could introduce guitarist Jon Durant to the latter and invite the American over to Hertfordshire to add higher-frequency melodicism to the British duo’s tuneful motifs. And though the results of the ensemble’s flights of fantasy are rather cerebral, the music on the trinity’s first album is also surprisingly buoyant.
Of course, it will take the performers some time to hit a scientific dancefloor – but what else are such epic pieces as opener “Transmission Resumed” that implies previous sonic conveyance and sculpts impressive edifice out of amorphic soundscapes, or the interplay-flaunting “Stationary Orbit” that goes disco from the start and reaches for delicate dub via reggae crunch, for if not for a full development of ideas? There’s no expediting of grandeur on route to climactic denouement; that’s why momentum is suspended for all to admire each instance of Durant’s dewdrop notes slowly yet surely embroidering Maitland’s sparse beats and Edwin’s seismic rumble, everything shot through with electronic shimmer. Increasingly fleshier and heavier, these expansive tapestries weave in dramatic raga-esque twang and envelope the audience in psychedelic cocoon, constantly morphing into something fresh to remain adventurous and shun any soporific tendencies by strategically placing sharpened riffs.
Still, while “Journey To Rebhu” offers a genuine trip on interstellar fields by propelling tight, very much tangible knots of tempo towards the great unknown, where Jon’s lines tie nebulas into many-layered macramé, his and Colin’s fretless passages feeling so fluid against Chris’ solid thunder, the bluesy “Mechanical Tears” leaves the listener wondering whether this cut’s fiercely, albeit solemnly, refers to artificial lament or signs of wear. With occasional white noise suggesting a wave of data, there’s a concept to follow, but “Lower Constrictor” allows exquisite details to enhance its cracked-cement casing to a convivial effect to contrast the dynamic tragedy of “Solar Season Signal” whose soul-shattering splashes and ripples at the bottom end threaten to damage one’s hearing and break one’s heart. A dispatch of utter beauty, here’s a record to scrutinize and cherish.
*****
