After 24 years and 10 albums, we’re still trying to figure out Trans Am. A statement of misguided complication or exaggeration? Maybe. But the trio—guitarist Phil Manley, bassist/keyboardist/vocalist Nathan Means, drummer Sebastian Thomson—hasn’t exactly made comprehension easy considering its non-linear progression, lack of canned press statements and refusal to submit to expectation. Trans Am’s throw-at-a-dartboard-and-see-what-sticks approach notwithstanding, the band finds itself with a 10th album in its laps. Volume X (Thrill Jockey) leans toward the streamlined sensibility of 2007’s Sex Change, snidely and playfully existing somewhere between krautrock, post-rock, electro-rock, punk rock and other prefix-rock. Trans Am will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature on them.
Means: When the farmer was done, he gestured with his hands and said, “I plowed 100 acres and now there is wheat for a small city.” When the musician was done in the 1990s, he could say, “I made this piece of plastic.” But now he can keep his hands in his pockets and say, “It’s online.” Which is way better than just holding a piece of plastic.
