Trans-X

Trans-X was the Montreal synth-pop vehicle of Pascal Languirand, son of Jacques Languirand, who had already made albums of ambient, cosmic and space music before he went looking for a beat. He took the name from Kraftwerk's 1977 "Trans-Europe Express", reckoning it was catchy and pointed where he wanted to go.

In 1982 he brought in Steve Wyatt, a Montreal keyboardist and programmer, as the other half of a duo, and their demo landed them a deal for a single, "Vivre sur Vidéo". Wyatt added synthesizer and programming to it, and wrote and played every instrument on the B-side, "Digital World", which also turned up on the maxi-single and the debut album. The English version, "Living on Video", came out in May 1983 and took off at once in Canada before spreading around the world: a cool, clipped machine-pop pulse, all sequencers and deadpan vocals, that sounds like it was built to be watched as much as heard.

Wyatt was gone by late 1983, but Languirand kept the name alive long after the video age had moved on, with Lady D and, from 2014, Ramón Serratos in the fold.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.