TRANSMISSION

It's been said that every duo has its Daryl Hall and its John Oates. Put another way, no twosome can have two equal leaders. Or another way: there's no shame in being Art Garfunkel , Robin the Boy Wonder, or Sandy the Squirrel. Anyway, synthesist-vocalist Ann Everton is apparently the John Oates of Baltimorean duo Darsombra.* To be fair, she may be the Dr. Watson of the operation, but if Transmission is any indication, Darsombra is a guitar-based project:* Everton's parts essentially support Brian Daniloski's guitar soloing and riffing.

The whole affair's difficult to classify, and the band's promotional materials has Darsombra 'drawing from varied traditions such as doom, musique concrete, southern rock, space rock, and contemporary classical.' I see space rock, but the other prog-rock subgenres I'd name are progressive-electronic and crossover-prog (more on that in a minute) - - but probably not Krautrock, which is how the group is classified on progarchives.com.

Transmission is comprised on one forty-one minute track, 'Transmission,' which, regardless of how you pigeonhole it, is an entry in a tough-to-crack bracket: that type of rules-eschewing studio-assembled music which used to require incredible technical and music skills to pull off - - something that probably wasn't worth trying fifty years ago if you didn't have the dedicated time of, say, Geoff Emerick or Teo Macero. In 2019, of course, it's a different game. Personally, I appreciate the democratization engendered by Garage Band and Pro Tools, and I think one of its effects is the proliferation of musicians who can create works like 'Transmission.' So, like wedding photography, it's a crowded field. It's much, much more possible to create good-sounding computer-based recordings, and it's much, much tougher to stand out. To Darsombra's credit, there were only one or two obvious edits on the entirety of this album - - and while there are sections that are copied and pasted, I never got the sense that such repetition was done to extend the length of the piece.

The other thing this group has going for them is Daniloski's ability to devise catchy guitar hooks, which accounts for the crossover characteristics of 'Transmission' (perhaps this is the 'southern rock' mentioned in their publicity materials). 'Transmission' is not crossover-prog (by that logic, 'Bohemian Rhapsody' would be opera), but if you extracted those riffs, you'd have a good start on a pop/prog hybrid album. In one sense, 'Transmission' can be viewed as guitar motifs dispersed among a wide-ranging variety of background ambiances, akin to the way the vocal snatches appear on the hidden track on Yes's Open Your Eyes. But there are many ways to approach 'Transmission.' It has substantial drone sections, some synth-based, others based on guitar arpeggios, and yet others built around rhythmic vocal samples. And given the catchiness of some of the riffs, there are points at which the whole piece feels like a medley.

Transmission is an absorbing listen: I can't say it's constantly enthralling, but it never gets boring, which is a genuine feat for a group which chooses to make a forty-plus-minute track. While this album is unconventional, it does observe the conventions of Western music; if you're into periodic improvisation that stops short of experimentalism, give this one a spin.

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*Everton's role in live performances is different, according to P.R. materials on darsombra.com which refer to 'guitarist Brian Daniloski's current project Darsombra ... with the help of projectionist Ann Everton, whose psychotropic video work...'