The last pair of Trensmat releases for 2011 see out our successful resurrection year with a big bang, split across 4 A-sides.

The second set sees Whirling Hall Of Knives share a disc with awesome newcomer from NZ, Tlaotlon.

WHOK turn in the mini-epic 'Synapse Snaps' - all creeping hard-panned malevolence that gradually evolves into a swirl of non-aligned drones. The sludge intensifies up until the halfway point when, unexpectedly, a pristine, snapping, percussive acid line cuts through the grime, eventually cleaning up the mess.

'Attitudes Blankets To Nada' from Tlaotlon builds and builds multiple layers of chattering pulses, bubbling bass, and hyperactive high-register rattle, before introducing a simultaneously mournful and triumphant synth melody - all the while grounded by a steady compressed kick that punches hardest on every fourth beat. When the maelstrom finally subsides you'll find yourself whipping the needle back straight away. This is powerfully addictive stuff and a thrilling glimpse into the future of our world (or the distant past of someone else's).

As always, each release comes with additional goodies for immediate download (including, of course, digital copies of every track featured on its respective vinyl). WHOK subject us to a lysergically-treated 30-minute live video document (recorded in Dublin's Joinery Gallery) and Tlaotlon allows two further transmissions to escape from the lab - 'New Horizons' and 'Spiral Arm' - audio manna for all those tuning in.

Pre-orders will be immediately sent a link to the download package.

VERY limited edition 7" in heavy wraparound picture sleeve (+ 5 downloads).

Dec 2011, TR026.

Tloatlon - Attitudes Blankets To Nada
Whirling Hall Of Knives - Synapse Snaps
Along with the Carlton Melton / Mugstar split 7" reviewed elsewhere on this week's list comes another new 7" from the fine folks at Trensmat, this one another split, but this one from two bands we had never heard of before, the first, Whirling Hall Of Knives, already had us kicking ourselves, their track a gorgeous droned out chunk of brooding slow building psychedelia, layered tones, looped rhythmic fragments, all manner of buzz and swirl and thrum, pulsing and throbbing, hypnotic and mesmerizingly sinister, until suddenly a beat surfaces right in the midst of all this swirling hypno-psych noisiness, a sort of squelchy acid-y groove, that transforms the sound something else entirely, a sort of spacey electro kraut-drone groove, that seems to dissipate as quickly as it was conjured, leaving just a bit of washed out drone-drift shimmer to finish things off.
A NZ band called Tlaotlon counter with their own sort of abstract psychedelia, less dense and ominous, a little more looped and rhythmic, right out of the gate the sounds swirl and beats stutter and pulse, reminding us a bit of a more electronic, slightly less noisy Our Love Will Destroy The World. As the track progresses, it becomes more Goblin/Carpenter soundtracky and synthy, woven into the band's psychedelic swirl, heady and dreamy and really great. We'll definitely be after more from both of these outfits.
And as with all Trensmat 7"s, there's a link on the sleeve to a download, which in this case includes a 30 minute tripped out live video from WHOK, as well as two extra tracks from Tlaotlon. SUPER LIMITED as always, already sold out at the label, so these are the last ones we'll ever get.
Aquarius Records


Record of the week 23rd Dec 2011
Piccadilly Records


Second of the featured trenSmat platters features familiar faces Whirling Hall of Knives and New Zealand’s latest kids on the block Tlaotlon.
WHoK serve up the psychotropic fringe parting stew that is ’synapse snaps’ which depending on how robust your psyche is to its brain scrambling charms sounds as equally irresistible played at 33rpm as it does in its prescribed and advised listening setting of 45rpm - not unlike we hasten to add to those curious un named deep house white labels that Peel often used play in the early 90’s to a mixture of delight and frustration from his listeners while off he popped one suspects to jab large pins in a doll form resembling the stations head controller or else be found deeply engrossed thumbing through some ink smudged cobbled up in the bedroom fanzine he’d been sent. Damn fine if you ask me - a mind wiping dream machine of sorts, all locked groove loops and trance tipped meditative murmurs colluding to retune and decode your nervous system into a series of vividly colourful soft psych swirls, repeat listens guaranteed to wipe your headspace clean.
Previously unknown to us Tlaotlon offer up ’attitudes blankets to nada’ - one of those quietly fades in type releases given it takes a while to warm up initially shimmering in its own self incubated transcendental sub space, its droning Tibetan pulsar dialects mushroom to see its influence drawn ostensibly from the late 80’s NZ drone / noise scene a la Dead C et al with a knowing eye on the slit breeze and early kranky catalogues albeit as though relocated to some secret bunker shared by Sadar Bazaar, Sonic Boom and Alphane Moon colluding busily on some attempt to achieve sonic enlightenment.
Losing Today


Whirling Hall Of Knives are a great Irish duo with electronic scuttling on their minds. Here, they create a dense, dark patchwork of claustrophobically building tones and rhythms that manage to pull a certain psyche feel out of the chaos. Tlaotlon is apparently a new solo project from Wellington New Zealand's Jeremy Coubrough, and it shares a squishing pulse with its record-mate, but gets a lot more ouvert in terms of space squeedle. Nice one.
The Wire