TERRY GROSS - Soft Opening

In the 1990s, Trans Am, a band from North Bethesda, Maryland, shaped an intriguing variant of post-rock, seeking to combine the rediscovery of krautrock with a boundless love for techno-pop. Phil Manley (guitar and keyboards), Sebastian Thompson (drums) and Nathan Means (bass and keyboards) brought their love for Kraftwerk, and for German motorik in general, into a different microcosm where physicality (unknown in other post-rock contexts) took on no marginal importance, and where guitar riffs met and clashed with the vocoder and a less basic, more experimental electronics.

Their stylistic signature gradually became more personal, finding the perfect squaring of the circle in 1998 with "The Surveillance", the manifesto of their "electrock", spasmodically balanced between krautrock and progressive. After charting this course, Manley set up the El Studio recording studio in San Francisco, together with two other musicians and sound engineers: bassist Donny Newenhouse and drummer Phil Becker. The studio boasts a splendid live room and is also equipped with a wide variety of vintage analog synthesizers, from the Moog to the Micro-Korg to the Crumar.

The three started playing together partly for fun, partly to test their gear and the limits of their recording studio. But as improvisation built up chemistry and a sense of teamwork among the musicians, the playful element grew into a full-fledged project called Terry Gross (not to be confused with the namesake host of the well-known radio show "Fresh Air", nationally distributed in the States by the independent non-profit organization NPR – National Public Radio).

The three seasoned musicians made their first album without any particular expectations, simply savoring the pure joy of improvising together. As the tape rolled during their jam sessions, the band managed to capture the exuberance of a live performance, enhancing the recordings through a skillful use of the studio as if it were a collective instrument.

Their debut album is titled "Soft Opening", and across three long compositions Terry Gross channel their cosmic energy and considerable skill into a joyfully hypnotic odyssey, using a rich range of sounds capable of holding back and releasing a pulsing energy.

The band could not have found a better name than "Space Voyage Mission" to open the program. The track lives up to the expectations of its thundering title: a sidereal mission that, after liftoff, speeds beyond Earth's orbit thanks to the solid structure of the rhythm section and Manley's guitar, which deploys his whole arsenal of effects. After seven minutes the rocket's first stage detaches; the drums first meander and then stop to make way for a massive guitar riff, which turns the track into a cadenced, psychedelic "song" with stoner undertones, where Manley also takes on vocals.

When the instruments seem headed for collapse, having run out of fuel, the three take off again stronger than ever for another 8 minutes of discovering new galaxies, between celestial choirs and sinuous, frenzied restarts. The following "Warm Gear" replicates the structure of the previous track, but it seems to lack the same propulsive force, and the musicians' exuberance cannot hide a repetitiveness that makes the spaceship creak and may prompt the listener to change galaxies.

The program closes with the shortest track, "Specificity (Or What Have You)", in which the three find the strength to persuade once more with a structure that again reveals Manley's love for energetic techno-pop.

We don't know whether this is a passing project or one destined to last, but Terry Gross are sonic scientists capable of having fun and making us have fun too, provided they manage to be less repetitive in their sonic vibrations.

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28/01/2021