THE SUNDAY TIMES
Must-have reissue
TRANSMITTERS: I Fear No-One
(Elsewhen Records)
Last year, the popular group Editors released their single Munich. Twenty-five years ago, if you'd wished to parody the British post-punk aesthetic many current groups appropriate, you couldn't have chosen a more ludicrous title. But these tracks are the real deal. Joy Division-style bass lines recede into the horizon. Clipped vocals declaim cryptic social observation. Muted funk rhythm guitar bleaches black source materials. And the sleeve features a poster for a pro abortion benefit, recalling simpler times when the political absolutes of rock's cutting edge weren't negotiable. Stewart Lee.
Morning Star review
A bit of old punk
(Friday 02 March 2007)
ALBUM: Transmitters - I Fear No One
(Elsewhen)
The encroachment of music's recent past onto the present mp3 age continues. Every other week sees an established band of the last 25 years freezing hell over to recreate their halcyon days. Logically, the nearly men must also regenerate to improve on past fortunes or claim their influence on today's plethora of blueprint students.
The Transmitters were regularly aired on John Peel's radio show from 1978-1980. Basking in the freedom presented by punk after its explosive revolution destroyed musical barriers, the post-punk era became an uncharted area for creativity.
Anything seemed possible and eager acts strived to conquer as many styles as musical imagination would allow.
The first half of this CD summarises the Transmitters' varied degrees of success. Uninvited Guest is spiky, adrenalin-boosted punk which could easily be supplanted into today's charts. Nowhere Train, which was originally released at a time when goth was unheard of, displays a doom-laden sinister angle, but attempts at avant-garde abstraction with Free Trade collapse in a tangled mess.
The second half's late-1980s sessions add a strong cohesion to their limitless adventurousness, highlighted in the uncannily natural jaggedness of Testosterone and the eerie introspection of Hammersmith.
It's hard to gauge their outlook, but it's invigorating trying to figure it out.
LEE MCFADDEN
MOJO
FILTER REISSUES EXTRA
Transmitters
****
I Fear No One Elsewhen
Raw but intriguing collection by Ealing outfit whose arty and scratchy post punk (The Fall/PiL) stylings from 1977 to the '80's remained resolutely perverse, ahead and undersung from start to finish. Jim Irvin
cream of the crop (fanzine webzine) 2007
Finally out after numerous set backs, comes the best of album from one of London's historic, fuck let's be honest UK's Iconic messiah new wave punks.
Punk was seemingly starting to die, THE SEX PISTOLS had died, and only the real vision was coming from the likes of John Lydon and P.I.L., plus the inventiveness of many others who were going to evolve and take the scene plus the attitude on further. Like many of the new breed of don't care souls were THE TRANSMITTERS. They were rubbing head, shoulders and even don't give a fuck smiles with the likes of THE SLITS, THE FALL, HUMAN LEAGUE, BLURT, THE POLICE, plus plying their scare trade sound tactics at many a riotous gig. The music press and onlookers were pencilling down their particulars, because, what they were doing, shook heads, shook minds, shook the shock.
Radio including John Peel took a liking to their potent imaginative approach and got them into the studio for a session in 1979, plus following up with a second and final session.
So the best of is out, and out on Elsewhen Records, the label that Sam Dodson, member of the band actually set up. It's a compelling piece of music history and a worthy long tale of 22 selected tracks. What brings this home is the John Peel sessions being given the go ahead to be featured. Like many a Peel session, where the bbc always seemed to catch the rawness, and the essence of what a band was doing in their prime. Peel knew the power, wave length and the appeal that THE TRANSMITTERS were on, this compilation will break new and fresh ears, even break new minds.
You get a blistering and totally on fire with intensity version of "Blankety Blank", which comes from the Peel session, on here, it's got the bleeps and fuzz guitar breaking every few seconds. The intensity just shatters ya. But must here from the same session is "I Fear No-One But My Friends", again coming from the same session, Like a dirty Depeche Mode that's had petrol poured on and lit. It burns with a new wave buzz, not many other bands at the time had the balls to create this don't give a fuck sound.
"We supported the Slits in Acton early 1978 and all the pistols were there and the Clash Sid Vicious was carried in and laid down ceremoniously at the back at the end of the gig he was dutifully carried out and thrown into the back of a black cab So he WAS there - but he wasn't so to speak"
The innovation of sound they created, if you want to try to describe it could be like a cross with XTC for the sheer different tangent creation, and sheer fright of Gang Of Four, but let's face it was just sheer indifference to others that made them stand out. "Ugly Man", like a funk punk fusion bomb blasting out, spitting out the vile dust on tongue taste of Ugly ugly mannnnn.
"Dead Siamese Sister" gives a glimpse of the similarity and connection they have been talked about over the years with THE FALL, who were also one time Record Label sharing mates. It sucks into deep south sounding guitar, played in echo hall practise rooms, it's ever swirling and whirling into transmit frenzy. All in all 22 tracks spanning career from one of the outstanding real hopes that were the new wave scene of the 80's many have tried to follow suit since, but hey they just can't make the cut.
DJ Mag
The Transmitters - I Fear No-One
Elsewhen
Punx not dead.
Long-lost artful punk band featuring Sam Dodson from Loop Guru. The band began like Magazine, got more experimental as it went along (especially 'Blankety Blank' in a rediscovered Peel Session), with strains of punk-funk and psyche in their latterday stuff. A fascinating historical artifact. Kim O'Connor
Mint Track: 'Blankety Blank'
3 1/2 Stars
RECORD COLLECTOR
The TransmittersI Fear No-One
Elsewhen
Jagged white noise, latterly referred to as 'post-punk'
Despite their dull name, the Transmitters promised much when they bent a number of influential ears on their journey through the eternaly fascinating late 70's, it was a promise that fizzled to an inglorious halt, however, although their infectious racket makes a welcome return on this curiously captivating compilation.
Whereas many similar outfits have faded with time, The Transmitters managed to secure an individuality that has led them to a cultish longevity. Perhaps it's the bands frenetic attack that has so endured. Far from bland thrash, they managed to weave an almost jazz-tinged experimentalism into short, sweet songs, Two steps ahead of the equally beguiling Fire Engines, perhaps one behind The Pop Group, they clearly understood the possibility of an expansive approach in a manner that seems positively courageous by today's tempered standards.
A raw brittle collection of songs, four of which are pulled from Peel sessions and as can often be the case, these can be viewed as their finer moments. As if Grotesque-era Fall had been frozen in ice. Mick Middles
Everett True in Plan B
The Transmitters were scary even for their times (1978-79): their music was full of dark mutterings and moping, jazz-inflected rhythms that had few peers, perhaps This Heat and Gl*xo Babies and some of Manchesters's more morbid leanings. Fractured, taut, rebellious, paranoid. but with too dissolute an image to connect with the trend-conscious London crowds, 'I Fear No-One...' (Elsewhen/Voiceprint) collects together the early singles, outtakes and Peel Session and sounds even more disturbing through the distorted vacuum of time - great, but hold on for the next volume ('81-'82) when The Transmitters were incredible, the live equivalent to the Birthday Party and Blurt. http://www.myspace.com/transmittersz
Rock Sound
THE TRANSMITTERS (7 - 10)
'I FEAR NO-ONE'
More late 70's post-punk arcana resurrected in the wake of the new breed of plagiarists. If you love Maximo Park, the logic goes, the you'll like The Transmitters. Only you won't, because this bunch were just a little too contrary, too deranged, and too of there timeto appeal to 21st century teenpunks. Shame (DJ)
Vanity Project
Transmitters – I Fear No-One (Elsewhen)
A not before time compilation of Transmitters tracks who were operating in
the late seventies/early eighties and features members who went on to
perform with the likes of Loop Guru and Transglobal Underground amongst
others. Scratchy post-punk that saw them perform with the likes of The Fall,
The Slits, Alternative TV and The Human League back in the day before the
likes of Franz Ferdinand had been born and stolen the stop start riffs as
their own. Wonderfully forward looking jerky punk funk bordering on the arty
experimental side that links them with the likes of early PIL and Gang Of
Four; the range of material on here is fantastic from the minimal funk of
John Peel session track Dirty Harry Theme Ngungu to the frenetic energy of
Blankety Blank and the odd track such as Ache that hints of future musical
experiments in later bands. A timely reminder of how exciting Transmitters
were and still are considering the current musical climate. Hop over to the
MySpace page for other delights from their back catalogue.
Grebo
The Paris Bitter Hearts Pit
Cd review: "I fear no-one" by The Transmitters
Category: Music
You know the feeling,when you stumble upon a gem from the past, how you know your mates will thank you for enlightening them (and even more often, forget after a time it was you who did, and become all snotty about how they were among the early admirers?) Such is the feeling I got when I first heard some of these tracks on The Transmitters' Myspace page. The impression that this is the real thing, cutting through all the heavily hair-styled cohorts of contemporary imitators, talented and less so, from Franz Ferdinand to more recent acts like The Blood Arm, the Fratellis and whatnot.
This compilation features The Transmitters' special brand of cut up, tripping, at times dissonant, at times groovy punk/post punk rock ("Persons Unknwown") verging on the no-wave ("Uninvited guest"). It's clever, aggressive music, and the "demo" quality of some the songs, grainy, crackling and frayed around the edges, evokes the times of analog recording, which remain dear to some of us and undeniably lend warmth and grit to the overall sound.
Few of these songs are what you'd call straightforward 70s punk rock, though there is a measure of overdriven nasty, at times provocatively short tracks ("Paper Boy"), but these are laid alongside some more adventurous sonic explorations that put The Transmitters closer to Television or Scritti Politti than, say the Buzzcocks ("Testoterone", with its Roxy Music-like vocals and complex rhythm pattern). Accordingly, atonal riffs scratch the back of your brain, evoking early XTC, and some guitar work is suprisingly sophisticated, with late 70s guitar heroes as obvious influences, but thankfully without the nauseating masturbatory emphasis and self-indulgence that make most wizards of the neck a pain in the ass: these interventions remain tense, sharp and good-manneredly short.
In short, the Transmitters deserve their place among the bona fide pioneers of punk/post punk rock and I wouldn't be surprised if their name turned up alongside the likes of Magazine, The Fire Engines or the Slits in future name-dropping competitions on what original punk was really about. | 
