Radiant City: "Terminal Drift"

TRACK LIST:
1. Urban Drill
2. He Fell After His First Flight
3. Auto Centro
4. Man Versus Mathematician

SAMPLE MP3: Click Here
MYSPACE: Click Here
WEBSITE: Click Here

NOTES:
Radiant City's EP "Terminal Drift" will be out February 7th, 2009 through MGM Distribution.

REVIEWS:

The recent spate of outrageously hot weather demonstrated yet again that society remains perversely fascinated with the changing vagaries of the weather. In fact, observing the weather must be the oldest past time - that is, in the moments between procreative amusement. Radiant City are not - by public report, at least - weather watchers or otherwise fascinated by the clouds, sun and wind. Yet within the band's music exists an intensity that's ordinarily associated with climatic events. Like the Dirty Three and Silver Ray (such comparisons are indefensibly obvious, but necessary nonetheless), Radiant City's instrumental sound broods, breathes and explodes with brilliant regularity. Terminal Drift is Radiant City's latest release, a four song EP that packs infinitely greater punch that its quantitive brevity would superficially suggest. The opening track, Uban Drill, barrels into action with a tumultuous drum beat that could simulate either the roll of thunder, or (as the title suggests) the brutally loud soundtrack of urban living, careful guitar licks fighting batter against feedback in a quest for aural supremacy. He Fell After His First Flight is a darker journey, a few choice melodies loitering in the background looking for a beat to embrace and a moment to seize. Auto Centro suggests a Krautrock dystopia, or maybe an obscure interpretation of the dysfunctional financial state of the contemporary global car industry as it strives for survival in an environmentally conscious world. Finally, there's Man Versus Mathematician, an intriguing debate to contemplate - the quest to reduce nature to a set of neat equations and binary concepts shows no sign of abating - and the methodical sounds and rhythms of the song itself suggest that it's less a fight, and more a constructive dialectic that can benefit all parties. Terminal this album certainly is not; if it drifts, it's doing so with attitude and precision. And it's definitely more exciting than weather watching.
- Patrick Emery, Beat

Four new explorations of post-rock melancholia - rich instrumental drifts in the vein of Mogwai. This is the third release by Melbourne's Radiant City and the very worse you could say about it is that it sounds very much like the other two, which are also amazing.
- Single Reviews, Beat

Radiant City's last transmission, 2007's limited Judith EP, was a big step forward from the Melbourne duo�s self-titled debut (itself highly impressive). It showed an increased clarity of purpose and less reliance on Andrew McLaughlin and Brad Marshall's direct influences. The four tracks that make up Terminal Drift are the next logical steps along that continuum. Recorded, once again, in the comfort of McLaughlin's lounge room, Terminal Drift benefits from a prevalence of warmth. Everything here sounds huge, bathed in natural reverb and free of the horrors of compression. Without a doubt, Radiant City are now louder and noisier than they ever have been. They're also more focused, showing a refined sense of economy on the EP's opening one-two punch. The strident 'Urban Drill' is an exercise in perpetual motion, building from practically nothing towards an explosive finale in just over three minutes. It's followed by the spidery 'He Fell After His First Flight', which offers a tightly-wound take on the traditional tension/release dynamics associated with instrumental rock. 'Auto Central' is a foray into pulsating electronic textures, combining flickering tones and subliminal hums with heavily processed drums and guitars. Sprawling closer 'Man Versus Mathematician' takes a more circuitous route than its predecessors. McLaughlin slowly constructs an impenetrable wall of noise over Marshall's deceptively simple drumming, closing out the disc with an almost deafening crescendo. Call it post-rock if you will, but Radiant City are leagues ahead of the hordes of dullards currently swooning under that ugly tag. And Terminal Drift is ample proof.
- Adam D Mills, Mess + Noise

La ville radieuse, or the Radiant City, was an early 20th century urban planning theory that attempted to organize a modern city design for the rapidly industrializing world. Le Corbusier, the architect responsible for this novel idea, called his Utopian model 'vertical garden cities'. Maybe the best representation for LC's vision is George Lucas' design of Cloud City, a seemingly peaceful, quiet, organized environment for working and living. In contrast, the hideous reality of Corbusier's architectural renderings is never more clear than in modern urban icons such as public housing, whose accidental purpose segregates its city's population based on wealth instead of creating prosperous communities. Critics would later encroach on Le Corbusier's theories as 'destructive and wasteful'. Enter our even more modern conundrum: suburbia, the modern �city� of auto-dependency, cultural disconnection, and the more visually and environmentally destructive plague of urban sprawl.
In Melbourne, Australia, as in many other places across the globe, there is a political movement to create more urban sprawl, or low-density residential development, to deal with the growing influx of human population. The isolation of suburbia disconnects people from a city's frequent human interaction, thus soundlessly lowering the standard of living by destroying cultural values. However, LC's Radiant City has returned from the dead almost a century later in the form of two musicians, to fight back against the silence of the environmentally degrading, anti-communities.
Taking the form of guitar and drums instead of architectural drawings, Radiant City has crafted a short EP centered around today's urbanization misfortunes. With track titles such as "Urban Drill" and "Auto Centro," the band seems to be making a statement about fighting the dead-end suburban model, even making the title of the EP itself very interesting. The music�s strong points lie in the decent atmosphere of intimate instrumental rock that is created, but one can only go so far with one guitar, drums, and a few effects. While the band seem to have a legitimate formula down for distancing themselves from the plethora of post-rock music of today, the songs lack the desirable length to really introduce any new ideas from the duo. I wouldn�t want this Radiant City to fall victim to the ages like the misfortunes of the former City.
Listeners should enjoy the short-lived EP for what it is worth however. With tracks like "Auto Centro" to break up the familiar monotony presented with a guitar-drum theme, I�m really interested in how the band can further develop its sound on a full-length album. Australia seems to be crawling with relatively special instrumental acts which have claimed international recognition and have lent inspiration to small acts such as Radiant City. While the Pulitzer Prize-winning, author/columnist Thomas L. Friedman claims the world is becoming �hot, flat, and crowded� from our unsustainable population explosion, Radiant City promises to separate themselves from the terribly crowded scene of emerging post-rock acts.
-Brett Hayes, The Silent Ballet


Click here to go back to RELEASES