My Review: White Rose Transmission - 700 Miles of Desert

White Rose Transmission - 700 Miles of Desert

Leaves, brushwood, sightings, skirmishes.

The clearing is thick, a shadowy beam illuminates the hemisphere of thought.

Music makes it possible to undo death, to leave people alive with what they have done. 

The second album by the duo Adrian Borland and Carlo van Putten expands boundaries, welcomes musicians who can increase the artistic possibilities of these enlightened thinkers and creators of new stars to listen to and admire. A work that hurts in retrospect, if we evaluate what happened to the director of the Sound, but, if we adopt what has been read in the previous lines, also a well-being, a sense of quiet and peace envelops us, through the sweetness of a creative apparatus capable of sowing novelties, modes and great light-filled beats.

Fourteen moments filled with charm, in a sad pop sphere that does not depress but rather gives a journey inside a will written with a smile and a pat on the back by Adrian: Carlo picks up (unaware, at the time) that confidence that stated that in the third disc the lyrics would be written by the former Convent leader.

In the dense design of what we listen to, we realize that we are listening to music and not songs: nothing is left with the intention of garnering acclaim, in a plan of extreme pandering, but rather we encounter a broadening of love, necessity and planning to test the pulse of one's nerves, in the forest of mysteries shrouded and protected by style, curiosity and the will to make infinite pleasure of seeing everything coloured with a glossy hue. The fact that becomes most apparent is that of being stunned, confused, never sure what Borland's burden of suffering was: one fears that it was a bequest like a will, and in this case the tears flow without stopping. If, on the other hand, one imagines this second discographic appointment in the name of White Rose Transmission as the way to find solace, lightness, venting, distraction or whatever, then there might escape a smile and a hug of thanks.

Certainly, for the entire sixty-four minutes it remains fixed in the mind that the direction of genres is broader but with a willingness to make the whole thing remain as a deep, almost silent breath. 

Rolf Kirschbaum's contribution, Mark Burgess's, as well as David Maria Grams's and Claudia Uman's vocals give the joy of hearing a band of friends in a rehearsal room as everything slides into the stave. Compact, dilated, open-ended, leaving the entrance open to some apprehension, 700 Miles of Desert is a gem that uses no strong manners to show itself, as it seems to almost sneak into the stereo system with the intention of staying there for a long time. 

Masked psychedelic jets, splinters of trained Post-Punk, the thrill given by an intense acoustic palace concealed by orchestrations, converge in the glory and magnificence of gagless notes, on a day in which rain kisses fog.

Adrian's lyrics (twelve out of fourteen), are apparently the most melancholy ever, as if those words had left the oxygen tank, in a long farewell. There are no leave-behinds, no angry outbursts, no explosive forms that can paralyse, but a bittersweet breath to make us all more aware and able, with listening, not to let them miss our love. Deep, intense, the album ranges within continuous surprises, and David Maria Grams' violin is a distributor of sobs, in the absolute ability to place side by side the approach of classical and pop music.

In Wild Rain the duet with Claudia Uman is a slow-motion slap in the face, a farewell of nature to man. Everything splashes in the direction of the sky where sounds lose weight.

It seems to see life enter the expressive textures to tattoo itself in the indifference of those who have failed to recognize the value of an artistic journey that began in the second half of the 1970s: not sowing grudges, much less accusations. A pen both limpid and mysterious, with the usual incredible voice to arouse immense suggestions.

Carlo, throughout the album, seems like the best friend who knows how to listen, how to advise, but doing it in a whisper, without any craving for the limelight. Songs like velvet gauzes that nail themselves to the tissues of our reflection, to mend the pain from other desperate acts of obscenity: all of Adrian's and Carlo's discography has suffered indifference from the masses, record, critics and the public. 

And then her: InBetween Dreams, which alone manages to go beyond its seven minutes because its mantra is a sinusitis, a coughing fit that keeps us constantly clinging to its brutal beauty. It really seems that the preceding and following pieces are the anticipation and postponement of a resounding miracle, human even before it is artistic....

It lives for the duration of listening the beat of a guitar that seems to die with the last track, but it does not.

There is no denying that the initial concept of these compositions was that of a painting on the surfaces of contrasts, of sorrows, but with an attempt, the last one, not to deny miles of joy that are present, and how very present they are...

The production is another attestation of class, as it wraps musical styles and genres within a perfectly assembled sound, chords, propulsions, like a chorus of souls that with a single voice nail us to listening and devotion.

The skeletons of the soul, perfectly placed before our hearing, during Desert Bones, seem to come out of a Doors psychedelic trip with Ennio Morricone backing, for a song that kicks away all joy.

With The Swimmer, lyrics by Carlo and music by Florian Bratmann, we are in the vicinity of an electronic dance that dips into classical music, with echoes of Church and the Psychedelic Furs: yet another gem that prints itself inside our awe.

The Old Scribe's favorite song, whose greatness has already been described, is presented here not in an acoustic version but in an electric one: Walking In The Opposite Direction is simply the summa of all the Hampstead artist's emotional and intellectual pulse, a carnal tear between the wings of angels protecting his vital aura. A masterpiece that wets all the feathers of the world with its tearful breath...

Being careful one realises that there is a lot that is apparent, a little that is hidden, a perfect mix of balances and imbalances that in this group's summer road manages to walk in the right direction: to allow what is contrary to life to be inside, to participate in what is now the celebration of Adrian's last living work.

Leave every mode to be able to listen to music on this album and give infinity the chance and the duty to stay on these fourteen wings: perfect flight needs the perfect soundtrack and it is right here...

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

15th October 2023

https://spotify.link/YVWa19Q3UDb