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Obento-Ya: Everyday chic in Japanese dining Healthy, quick, and tasty Asian lunch
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Blogs
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National Features >
Broward-Palm Beach New Times
Sexual Healing
For Florida's sole remaining sex surrogate, love is a many splintered thing.
By Michael J. Mooney
City Pages
Your Friendly Neighborhood War Profiteer
It's not just giant companies cashing in on America's defense industry.
By Jeff Severns Guntzel
The Pitch
Supersizing Sonic
How a throwaway idea at the Barkley ad agency became the "Sonic Guys."
By Justin Kendall
Houston Press
Temples of Tex-Mex
A diner's guide to Texas's oldest Mexican restaurants.
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Trans Am: Sex Change
Virgil McDill
Published on March 21, 2007
Trans Am
Sex Change
Thrill Jockey
The change of scenery seems to have done them good. Regrouping in New Zealand last year to record Sex Change, post-rock's poster children came up with a novel technique for altering their sound—they left their instruments at home. Using almost exclusively borrowed equipment, Trans Am parted with their signature vocoder (except on the spectral post-disco track, "Climbing Up the Ladder, Parts III and IV") and produced an album with an effervescent, synth-pop soul.
Free of the gloomy guitar-noodling Krautrock that has plagued previous Trans Am releases, Sex Change is unabashedly fun. Album opener "First Words" sets the tone with a shimmering evocation of early Depeche Mode, while the gorgeous "4,738 Regrets"—a lilting piece of synthesizer-driven pop—stands as one of the prettiest songs in the Trans Am catalog. The guitars come out in full force at album's end, on "Shining Path" and "Triangular Period," a return to form which serves to remind that while Trans Am crafted a novel sound on Sex Change, they did it on borrowed instruments.
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