SISTERS OF TRANSISTORS
At The Ferranti Institute
THISIM018
This Is Music Ltd 2009
11 Tracks. 45mins07secs

Amazon UK: CD | LP Boomkat: DLD iTunes: DLD

The Sisters Of Transistors are something of an oddity. Like an alternative version of the WI, they meet regularly and partake in various activities, which can involve electronic seminars, soldering or choir practice, although they are in much more restricted number (four) than any WI committee. In the early nineties, Graham Massey stumbled upon a collection of Hammond organs and sheet music while setting up for a set with 808 State at a rave at Burton Wood Air Force Base, in Cheshire. A little further investigating revealed that the base played a considerable role in providing a platform for ladies organ quartets in the North East of England from the Second World War onward.

The Sisterhood was born from Massey’s interest in ladies organ quartets and through a research project at the Ferranti Institute and at his own South Manchester Museum Of Keyboard Technology, with the aim to emulate the work of one of the genre’s pioneers, Lillian Meyers. Officially formed and named during a ceremony on 4 August 2007, and counting four organ-obsessed members who go by the colourful names of Sister Wigby Elka Wippeny, Sister Naomi Doric Pencrest, Sister Henrietta Vox Humana and Sister Ragna Tiescodottir, with honorary member Prof Vernon World-Drums (Graham Massey) on drums, the Sisters Of Transistors have collated an album’s worth of original material played entirely on vintage organs, with, according to the band’s myspace page, ‘an emphasis on the Italian models from the early seventies’.

The SoT claim a wide range of influences, from Magma to the Shangri Las and B52’s to Ennio Morricone and Manuel Gottsching, and while the idea was to leave these behind to get a totally fresh approach, there are some hints of some of them scattered all the way through. At The Ferranti Institute is indeed a melting pot of cosmic prog rock and psychedelic pop centred around heavily layered melodies and orchestrations. There is a truly gritty edge to the sounds which give these tracks a resolutely old school feel. At times, this works rather fantastically, whether it is on the groovy Tiger Ghee, which opens the proceedings, recent single The Don, the light-hearted Sisterhead or the slightly hypnotic Solar Disco, while at others, the compositions can appear slightly overblown to say the least, as is the case with Beat Girl occasionally, or with Pendulum or the hectic Unicorn Light Brigade. This is one of the pitfalls of the genre, and one that the band can’t quite avoid, yet by keeping their tracks around the three to four minute mark for the most part, they manage to keep both the epic proportion of the sound and the momentum going throughout the album.

At The Ferranti Institute is quite a difficult record to grasp. The concept is undeniably interesting, and when things fall into place, there are some pretty fun moments on here. Yet, it often feels like the serious aspect of the project is constantly offset by a tongue-in-cheek approach which is either too light to effectively affect the record or too pronounced to give its documenting capacity any weight. This record is enjoyable enough but ultimately lacks the substance to make it a truly memorable set.

2.7/5

Sisters Of Transistors (MySpace) | This Is Music Ltd
Amazon UK: CD | LP Boomkat: DLD iTunes: DLD