Tranzistors / Princess Dragonmom split on Young Soul Rebels

I talked about The Tranzistors a while back and this split with Princess Dragonmom seems to expand on this gospel blown out glam sound they recorded on the Cinnamon Girl single and the Princess Dragonmom side sounds like they've blown it completely apart, cut it up, buried it in the backyard and spliced it back together in a lacquer masterers nightmare. A great insert quote by Ray Charles and Lenin are just about as different as these two. Young Souls has long since gone, Princess Dragonmom haven't updated their site in a few years and The Tranzistors are survived by a myspace page. Always worth checking out since I missed these guys entirely in year one of the site.

The Tranzistors A-Side "Free Electrizity" has a blaring sax section in response to the layered vocals with the standard bass single note jam, all dropping down to an acoustic and tambourine to get into the virtues of electricity in this garage soul relation to the Make up. Without none of this would be possible, the band, the cutting or playing the record. A subdued number compared to that previous single. A broken moog circuit bent solo plays against the gospel sound of this heavy production with a horn section and robes flying. Guitars are nice and dirty when they step forward for a minute, these guys seem to have been able to balance these elements in their song, the rhythm recorded into separate plateaus of sound making for a unique whole.

B-Side's Princess Dragonmom decimates The Tranzistor side in "Free 'Lectricity" right down to the layers of feedback or circuits imploding, sounding like speakers in and outed right to each other until the tape gives out and some kind of drum starts. Blown out and cut up from a bunch of other recordings, pieces of a huge rehearsal space jam. They put together a couple of live sets that are no survivors, plane down. Spazztic drums, and I love distortions, even when it's quiet, that buzzing hum is overwhelming. Feedback sounds like lasers, and it becomes heavy avant garde experimental music at this point. Chopped up sets with the levels turned all the way up, you will have trouble getting friends to want to hear this but this must be the Lenin side obviously.

Jerk.

You can get this from the old discogs or Time Stereo or UFO FACTORY.

Check out Tranzistors work from Myspace or PM's site.

Tranzistors on UFO factory records

Even after already checking out a previous single from the Tranzistors I still can’t find much info about the Detroit trio (?). At least one member, Andy FM, is currently listed as being a member of His Name is Alive which is completely insane, not to mention I think the band also runs the label UFO Factory who put this out. Both sides are different ‘Girls’ tracks and are both different approaches to their contemporary glam sound.

A-Side’s "Cinnamon Girl" made me want to go back to T. Rex and where this ultra glam punk started. I've never connected to it in the way I thought I would but maybe that’s because I want to be where Jeff Novak and the Tranzistors already are. I also can’t believe there was a time you could catch this shiny, produced sound live? Free range synths, epic windmill chords, background ahhh's and drums smacking with handclaps... they can’t have enough elements in this. The more changes, the weirder they can get, almost crossing into math territory, the better. Double up the high register vocals and it becomes like something from Hedwig walking down the street. Bowie is another piece of the puzzle but these guys update those traditions and if they get me to give that stuff another shot well then they've done more for this genre than anyone else has. Gated chords, handclaps, it's a damn musical. Rocky Horror picture show is making a little bit more sense now.

B-Side’ "Honeycomb Girl" breaks out an acoustic with background conga, more heavy harmony and layered vocals. It's enough that they already sound like a god damn candy shop and then they want to break hearts on top of the stickiness. They even feel like getting a string section involved but the sky should be the limit, you ought to see the list of people involved in this in the liner notes. Calling all session musicians we've got a genius here, run them in and out, punch the console. NEXT! A smooth ride where the vocals are and they should be the focus of this sort of thing. Something of an Elliott Smith sounding punchy doubling vocal effect from his later stuff, his similar interpretation of English glam '70s dragged into today. This one’s even got something of a country feel with this fiddle and lonesome assless chaps solo. Damn I think these guys sent me a full length? I better go find it.

These handstamped center label copies are still available from UFO Factory Records.

The Tranzistors on Cass Records

Here’s a completely mysterious single I saved for when I had time to go down the rabbit hole of the internet. Coming from Ben Blackwell’s Cass Records though, this single from the Tranzistors isn’t completely without context, having been released on Cass is probably enough you need to check this out. The band does exist on Facebook with promise of new releases coming in 2013, but this single is from way back in the catalog from 2006. Something along the lines of Jeff Novak’s blinding glitter, these guys are going even further dragging that late ‘70s sound right into the future with crazy synth.

A-Side’s "Yoo Will" starts with great organ stabs of '60s psych and then they turn this right into full super crazy spaced out glam. The vocal has all the doubled harmony of Eno's Bowie tracks from another planet. A rough squealing guitar like this just somehow makes sense flying over the low-end thick sounds. How they work this ring tone 8 bit guitar into this crystal clear sound is so weird it works. It’s a heavy dose of their future vision of piano keys and swapping epic pieces of smooth glam, with more polish and production sheen than anything out there. This bizarre doubled vocal takes in that glam androgynous direction of “Bang bang dot dot dot / Yoo will”. The drums are even panning back and forth between channels with a sudden fade out but this had to end, it moves fast and doesn’t wait for you. It’s hard to figure out exactly what is placing this so perfectly in that glam style, definitely the fun and weirdness of T-Rex, but I should be able to do better than that. Those chopped up bits of a digital sample is used like a new instrument; a screaming sweep of broken electronics with star wipes, a super gleaming mess that’s carving out a class all by itself.
B-Side's “Yoo Don't” has a great minimal simplicity until they get this over the top spinning mirror ball prom night Shannon Shaw style chorus. This minimal verse is jagged with some kind of soul, the back and forth guy/girl vocals, like Hunx without any sense of irony, they go to the next level, past the roof of the garage and out into space. A real rocket ship they’ve got here. Organ solo’s and wa ooo's from the heavens. How do they get those guitar’s lined up like that? In the way that Ariel Pink is hiding behind layers and layers they take that same raw surface right into the open with the biggest cleanest design. Get to work guys, we’re waiting.

From Cass Records, there's still time to mine his back catalog, and this gem is available.

The only way to hear this is go over to Justin Timberlake's new myspace. It might be too late Justin, but then again with bands like this still having their tracks available in this redesign might be enough to still check out every once in a while.