Trans Am are a three-piece band from Washington, DC, but they're no average power trio. Philip Manley is a guitarist who employs keyboards to mix the sound in real time like a DJ. Nathan Means switches between bass and synthesiser. And Sebastian Thomson uses acoustic drums while also programming sequenced patterns from a box of tricks beside his kit. This is where breakbeat science meets rock'n'roll.
Or, to put it another way, Trans Am are the missing link between Kraftwerk and ZZ Top, and it's no surprise to discover that they grew up listening to both. You can hear it in their krautrock boogie: a series of huge bass riffs that surge with unstoppable force as the gadgets do the cybernetic shuffle. Not that they espouse robot chic or sport long beards - it's regulation jeans and T-shirts for these boys. And they're almost pretty enough to have teen appeal.
The lighting is minimal - a single bulb flashes on and off, like a strobe in slow motion. The players gaze at their shoes, offering only the occasional "thank you". Even this is spoken through a vocoder, removing any meaning it might have had. But then, Trans Am are part of the "post rock" scene based around groups such as Tortoise: rock stripped of its attitude, performed by lapsed academics doubling as indie kids, who communicate purely through sound.
Like Radiohead on Kid A, Trans Am have absorbed the avant-electronica of Sheffield's Warp, as well as that record label's anonymous/minimalist aesthetic. The music is cerebral, as though Trans Am, despite their love of the form, are aloof from rock. When Manley holds his guitar above his head at the end, it is a display of mock-triumph, a parodic gesture.
So nothing "happens" tonight - but it's happening, all right. American Kooter and Ragged Agenda have an irresistible forward motion. The synth-triggered rhythm of I Want it All is roughly what you'd get if you fed Steppenwolf's Born to Be Wild through a computer. On Polizei, Means chants in German, nailing that Teuton-Texan theory for good. Play in the Summer, with its pop hook, is their one bid for mainstream radio attention. Many of these songs have an unfinished quality, as though they are demos - no wonder there are 21 of them on their forthcoming album, Red Line. It's death disco, dance music reduced to a skeletal beat.
