The 1981 Listening Post - Transmitters - And We Call That Leisure Time

 Reviewed by Jim Coursey

Released: January 1981 Transmitters And We Call That Leisure Time Genre: Post Punk / Funk / Jazz Rating: 2.5 out of 5 Highlights: Lovers Not Corpses The Beat Goes On Money and Suss I was so taken with Missing Presumed Dead’s 1980 album that I was excited to check out the 1981 album by their antecedent, Transmitters. In many ways, “And We Call That Leisure Time” has more in common with MPD’s “How's Your Bum For Cracking Walnuts?” than Transmitters 1978 “24 Hours.” Their debut has some of the punk, funk and jazz elements heard here, but with a few toes still in the bluesy late 60s / early 70s and more of an emphasis on classic songcraft. Transmitters’ follow-up sounds firmly on the other side of PIL’s “Second Edition” – starker and more minimal, albeit not quite to the degree that Lydon et al had gone. This is certainly the impression I got from opener and chief highlight “Lovers Not Corpses”, which starts with the droning, focused monotony of “Second Edition” but sets itself apart as Rob Chapman’s vocals become more cutting and the horns come in. It’s a fantastically delirious rumination on romance, and boded well for the album. Sadly they didn't return to anything near this height until somewhere on side B, when they offer up a taut, frantic take on Sonny and Cher’s “The Beat Goes On.” Following that, “Money and Suss” offers a mildly humorous spin on “On Broadway.” But there’s little more to recommend here. On first listen I was too annoyed by the band at this point to even enjoy these tracks, and only really got into them after skipping back through the album. The primary issue here is the lack of songs coupled with a lack of focus. Too often I’m reminded of the famously unpronounceable 00’s punk-funk band !!! (“chk-chk-chk”), whose output (at least what I heard) was a sloppy, edgy white boy attempt at booty-shaking retro post-punk that checked a lot of boxes without ever delivering the goods. I figure Transmitters was probably pretty good live, but here they are devoid of songs and full of nominally clever [1] but annoyingly ranty vocals that just don’t cut it on an album. Do check out the killer first song though. [1] “Paul is Dead” offers some twists (ahem) on Beatles’ lyrics as Chapman weeps for the not missing but presumed dead McCartney. It’s not a good song though, and the Chipmunks-style vocals towards the end did nothing to dissuade me of that fact.