Singer/songwriter, guitarist and producer Christopher Goett may be best known for his work in Silo Halo. After a decade stint in Washington, DC. Goett returned to Los Angeles — and he quickly amassed a growing collection of songs. Interestingly, Goett credits his longtime friend, Sleepmask’s and Dreamland’s Adam D’Zurilla with encouraging him to further explore and expand upon those early song ideas. The end result is Goett’s latest project, the post punk/shoegaze act Blackout Transmission.
With the addition of Kevin Cluppert (bass) and Teenage’s Wrist’s Anthony Salazar (drums), the band’s lineup was solidified, and their sound and arrangements were fleshed out. Late last year, the members of Blackout Transmission slated playing live shows, developing and harnessing their live chemistry before they went to Long Beach-based Dream Machine Studio to record most of their Scott Holmes co-produced, eight song, full-length debut, Sparse Illumination. “Scott pushed me in the best way to reimagine elements of my approach” says Goett, “as such we captured the vibe and feel that I was seeking with these songs.”
As a result of pandemic-related restrictions and lockdowns, Goett was forced to finalize his overdubs at his home studio, Twin Dragon West — and where he wrote and recorded two of the album’s eight songs. Despite where the material was written and recorded, the end result is an album that finds the band crafting material that’s a seamless lysergic journey seemingly influenced by Echo and the Bunnymen, The Verve, and others.
Sparse Illumination‘s latest single is the brooding and expansive “Portals.” Centered around a sinuous bass line, thunderous drumming, swirling reverb and delay pedaled guitar and Goett’s lyrics offering meditations on space, time and love, “Portals” possesses the sort of painterly and lysergic textures of A Storm in Heaven but paired with a widescreen, cinematic quality.
Sparse Illumination slated for a February 19, 2021 through Etxe Records.
