By: Thomas Bell

If you haven’t yet heard Austin quartet Experimental Aircraft yet, you’ve been missing out. And Third Transmission is a perfect time to get on board. They’ve been building their shoegaze, noise, atmospheric-ecstasy chops for some ten years and I do mean building (more on that shortly), especially on this album. The album is out now, on the excellent Chicago-based Graveface Records (home of The Appleseed Cast, Black Moth Super Rainbow, and The Octopus Project among others). The rockers are Rachel Staggs-guitars and vocals, TJ O’Leary-guitars and vocals, Mark Smith-Bass, and Jason Ferguson (drums).

They do everything that is great and memorable about their first two records here and then up the ante. The first track, Stellar, begins with sci-fi overtones. Within moments Furguson’s relentless drumming ushers in the gauzy guitars and Staggs’, subtly, mesmerizing voice and you know that this is the Experimental Aircraft devotees are addicted to. The second track, Upper East Side, features O’Leary on lead vocals whose voice is more prominently featured on this one than on their first two. It adds a whole new dimension to the variety of sounds they make. His singing has a tortured desperation akin to Robert Smith’s lonely howls. Third track, Overseas, features Staggs’ vocals again, only this one evokes almost a Mazzy Star moodiness with reverb-soaked, note bending guitars that seems to writhe sensually.

Fourth track, Kali Yuga, utilizes male and female vocals, often in octaves, slow but urgent pounding tempo with the drums doing faster inner rhythms, building from intensely tribal to off-kilter stutter beats to cacophony and frenzy before resolution. The vocal harmonies here and on other tracks are usually in open intervals, adding to the stark, pure atmosphere (think medieval, organum). The lyrics to fifth track, With A Gun, could almost be a Throwing Muses/Kristin Hersh song. And the world can never have enough of that.

The thing they do here that builds on their previous work, besides O’Leary’s more prominent vocals and more male/female harmony, is the wild storm going on in the rhythm section. Both Smith on bass and Ferguson on drums fill these slow-burning gems with undulating, tumultuous inner rhythms that often intensify what was an already captivatingly rare sound. They are slated to play SXSW and, we desperately hope, they will be playing all over the country soon.

Warning: If you buy this record, you will want to get their other two albums. Their name captures exquisitely so many subtle aspects of their sounds. Comparisons to Sonic Youth, Stereolab, and a who’s who of dream pop stalwarts have been understandably made for sound reason. They take elements of space rock, shoegaze, futuristic, and at times apocalyptic moods to create soundscapes that take you to sublime and nitrous-relaxed, if at times tumultuous destinations. Rachel Staggs’ breathy vocals prominently, but always understatedly meld with swirling, reverby guitars and hypnotic rhythms to create sublime sonic worlds that are mesmeric and addictive.