DE TIAN- Transcriptome
Discus: DISCUS 93CD
Paul Shaft - guitar, bass, synths, ethnic percussion, voice; Paul Hague - percussion, electronics; Martin Archer - saxophones, melodica, recorders, wood flute, electronics
Recorded by Paul Shaft at Dog Biscuit Studios, East Sussex
To begin with the album’s title: a ‘transcriptome’ is the collection of RNA transcriptions in a population of cells. This certainly feels oddly prophetic as a title, given the recent advances in anti-virus drugs for covid-19 and their use of RNA. What this means in terms of the album’s concept eludes me, but it means that the tunes don’t have names but images. As the press release has it, “Each composition here is an interpretation of a different real transcriptome dataset (each from around 5000 cells) which you see represented in different visual forms in the sleeve.”
De Tian first came about in the late 1970s in Sheffield which, at the time was the place where synth pop was being deconstructed (ironically, one of the bands from that era, Cabaret Voltaire, have also released a new album this month). The deconstruction melded industrial noise (typically in the form of heavy, metallic percussion) with all manner of odd sounds forced out of the synthesisers. The sleeve says the 1978 version of de Tian (crystallising in Shaft and Hague as a duo) made ‘strange organised sounds’ as an ‘antidote for what was to come’ (partly referencing the dreary sounds of ‘New Romantics’ in the 1980s I suppose). Ever keen to stretch the boundaries of performance art, de Tian shows incorporated projections, movies and a magician. And, rather than build on the ongoing synthesised ‘scene’, their references were more often Stockhausen or Harry Partch. While this might sound overly academic, the music they made (and still make) is not out of place in a warehouse rave.
In the intervening years, Shaft and Archer collaborated, for example, in the Sheffield Free Music Group, and de Tian Mark 2 explored the overlaps between industrial music, experimental synth music and the cultured simplicity of Ornette Coleman or AACM. All of which creates a reasonable list of touch-points that could be used to interpret this music, I suppose. But the only way to appreciate it is to put it on (as loud as you dare) and let the pulsing rhythms and darts of sound make you bounce around your kitchen.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Discus: DISCUS 93CD
Paul Shaft - guitar, bass, synths, ethnic percussion, voice; Paul Hague - percussion, electronics; Martin Archer - saxophones, melodica, recorders, wood flute, electronics
Recorded by Paul Shaft at Dog Biscuit Studios, East Sussex
To begin with the album’s title: a ‘transcriptome’ is the collection of RNA transcriptions in a population of cells. This certainly feels oddly prophetic as a title, given the recent advances in anti-virus drugs for covid-19 and their use of RNA. What this means in terms of the album’s concept eludes me, but it means that the tunes don’t have names but images. As the press release has it, “Each composition here is an interpretation of a different real transcriptome dataset (each from around 5000 cells) which you see represented in different visual forms in the sleeve.”
De Tian first came about in the late 1970s in Sheffield which, at the time was the place where synth pop was being deconstructed (ironically, one of the bands from that era, Cabaret Voltaire, have also released a new album this month). The deconstruction melded industrial noise (typically in the form of heavy, metallic percussion) with all manner of odd sounds forced out of the synthesisers. The sleeve says the 1978 version of de Tian (crystallising in Shaft and Hague as a duo) made ‘strange organised sounds’ as an ‘antidote for what was to come’ (partly referencing the dreary sounds of ‘New Romantics’ in the 1980s I suppose). Ever keen to stretch the boundaries of performance art, de Tian shows incorporated projections, movies and a magician. And, rather than build on the ongoing synthesised ‘scene’, their references were more often Stockhausen or Harry Partch. While this might sound overly academic, the music they made (and still make) is not out of place in a warehouse rave.
In the intervening years, Shaft and Archer collaborated, for example, in the Sheffield Free Music Group, and de Tian Mark 2 explored the overlaps between industrial music, experimental synth music and the cultured simplicity of Ornette Coleman or AACM. All of which creates a reasonable list of touch-points that could be used to interpret this music, I suppose. But the only way to appreciate it is to put it on (as loud as you dare) and let the pulsing rhythms and darts of sound make you bounce around your kitchen.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
