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Hopes and dreams. Pedal Steel Transmission was the band that taught us to try everything, to try hard, to be a band, to turn as soon as the line went straight. Started in 1999 with fiery semi-country with flecks of noise and eventually unfolding over the course of 3 full-lengths all sorts of bombastic indie rock, contemplative ballads, tweaked time signatures, Yo La Tengo obsessions, Johnny Cash prison riots, Stereolab armbands… John McLaughlin spazz, Speedy West worship. It’s hard to imagine not being at Lilly’s every Thursday, or waking up without a slightly throbbing neck. Pedal Steel Transmission contains all the raw elements that eventually splintered into the new bands on the label: Hummingbiird, The Singleman Affair, The Part Five, Mean Sea Level… I can literally hear us discovering our music collections on these discs.
Pedal Steel Transmission is Chris Brantley (‘99-2001), Bryan d’Ouville (‘99-2004), Don Ogilvie, Gary Pyskacek and Dan Schneider
Related: The Part Five, The Singleman Affair
discography
cs003 Pedal Steel Transmission - The Angel of the Squared Circle
With the release of “The Angel of the Squared Circle”, the Pedal Steel Transmission emerges with its most commanding performance to date. Songwriters Dan Schneider and Gary Pyskacek have reached a new level of maturity and intensity, and both seem to have found their own distinct voices. Blending and weaving a cohesive story and experience throughout the record, the Pedal Steel Transmission has forged a memoir of lonely nights and harrowing demons, a cinematic experience of sexual and emotional self-destruction seen through the eyes of everyday confusion and anxiety. From the tattered, apocryphal caravan sound of the album’s opener “Waiting” to the quiet awake/asleep sounds of “Amy” and “Maritime Glare”, the album unfolds into a beautiful story that ends all too soon. The album’s diversity is soon felt in the razor-wielding cry of “Gilman Report”, where the band pushes the limitations and boundaries of standard post-rock. The starvation of “I Saved the Last High Style for You”, and the quiet sonnet of “In Mourning:Reprise” find the listener staring blankly out the window on a pale rainy Chicago afternoon.
1. Waiting 10:09
2. Amy 3:48
3. Maritime Glare 2:58
4. It's Only A Day 'till My Bed Is Warm 1:32
5. Breakin Windows Everywhere 6:30
6. I Saved The Last High Style For You 4:39
7. In Mourning 3:02
8. Silent Like Hands 4:49
9. Editene 6:19
10. Gilman Report 6:45
11. Baionette 9:08
press
“…this band would seem to be making music for the David Lynch film festival of everyone’s imagination. While some songs are sprawling, impressionistic, amorphous things full of shadows and
dreams, when the band falls into more traditional song structures, as on “Amy”, the results are just as
scintillating.” Pop Culture Press
“…a gorgeously tense nod to Black Heart Procession and Calexico that rests so precariously between sunny, rural prettiness and wrenching dissonance that it could constantly fall either way but somehow never does.” Pitchfork
“…PST flirts with twang and indulges in its share of strum, but these elements are integrated into something cinematic and widescreen, full of weathered ambience and improvisational nuance- with
nary a wide-brimmed Stetson or a dusty Dingo in evidence.” Magnet
cs002 Pedal Steel Transmission - In the Winter, It Makes the Dead Grass Look Green
This is the Pedal Steel Transmission at their naive finest. Stereolab collides with Hanks of all generations to rhythm-up a good feast. Pedal steel and distortion, alternate tunings, time-signatures discarded, feel Pedro the Lion through John McLaughlin and a suddenly singy Tortoise. The album that put this foursome on the map amidst a a sickened clan afraid of everything country and beautiful alike. A group spent from trying too hard and sick from the overblown serious, 23 and angry from the rules, yelling at the ceiling at 4AM. Oh, and a guitar hero or two.
1. Sorted 3:17
2. Self Service Rest 10:44
3. I Only Got 1 Hour Of Sleep Last Night 5:57
4. Tweakin The Bible 4:25
5. Para Ella 4:14
6. Her Dream 8:09
7. Half As Well 7:13
8. The Sun Bites Its Tongue 5:50
9. Sandy Toes 7:23
10. Sempiternal Tryst Detente 11:53
press
…the eerie space blues “Sempiternal Tryst Detente” pushed me gradually to the edge of my seat. And when the band finally revs up, it really rips: on “Her Dream” or on the introductory “Sorted,” guitarist Dan Schneider and pedal steel man Gary Pyskacek torture their strings into a screeching riotous glory. I want to hear them stretch the primal Can-ish chug of “Half as Well” for half an hour or so, just to see where it goes. -Monica Kendrick-Chicago Reader
…They have developed a complimentary mixture of heartland alt-country and the finer elements of Tortoise and Stereolab. It’s almost like Chicago and Austin got together and produce a perfectly healthy bouncing baby boy/girl.
-Jd Noreasterzine
…Sounding like a cross between Built to Spill, R.E.M., and Pavement,Pedal Steel Transmission are experts at finding gorgeously pristine passages of tinkling guitar and crooning pedal steel, only to drown them in an undertow of black guitar belches and cavernous drumming… -Delusions of Adequacy
…Altogether, “In the Winter…” is a magnificient album. From the rip-roaring power of “Her Dream” to the three cinematic parts of “Sempiternal Tryst Detente,” this is an epic. The Pedal Steel Transmission have recorded what is definitely one of the better albums of last year. -Indieville
Pedal Steel Transmission makes its steel sound like a poltergeist’s visitation or a dramatic descent of a UFO at a Velvet Underground show. -Aversion.com
…Imagine Sonic Youth circa 1988 performing as the back-up band for Waylon Jennings after he took a fistful of heavy psychedelics… -Terry Egan, Ink 19
cs004 Pedal Steel Transmission - That Ain't Right
The 2000 debut of the Pedal Steel Transmission. Songwriters Dan Schneider and Gary Pyskacek duel it out song for song in an ecstatic spazz-out of genres: Irreverent rockabilly a la Pixies, straight up country with a flare for 70’s revivalism (Flying Burrito Brothers, Zappa, NRPS). The most striking aspect of this album is the soaring guitar interplay. Pedal Steel mingles with John McLaughlin and Sonny Sharrock bursts, spazz-outs and improvisations that remind you more of Alan Licht or Thurston Moore than of Carl Perkins. This is Pedal Steel at its rawest and most care-free– reverent to the Chicago alt-country tradition with one hand, planning a stab or two with the other.
1. Old Arsenic And Lace 5:48
2. Wine And Dine 8:39
3. Sunday Brunch 2:47
4. Dear Old Dr. LaRue 4:59
5. Two-Bit Gravedigger's Lament 6:50
6. Industry Standard 4:41
7. Industry Standard 4:41
8. If I Knew You Better, I Would Sell You More Stuff 5:29
9. Fishnets 4:42
10. Long Gone 13:31
11. De La Quitter 7:34
press
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