We discovered a little stash of these recently in the closet, the 2005 debut from these bizarre Norwegian black metal trolls, who will obviously appeal to the same folks who dig Finntroll (us!!), similarly combining polka-like folk music, all fiddles and jaw harp and campfire twang, with tangled, maniacal almost punkish black metal blasting, singing in their own Trollish tongue (known as Trollsprak), and dizzying genre hopping arrangements, that flit from furious black buzz, to fiddle laced buzz drenched sea shanty, to ale hoisting drinking song, to sea sick black metal waltz, the various parts and sounds constantly tangling and intertwining, buzz meets jawharp, fiddle meets blast beat, it's pretty goofy, but pretty fun too, not sure if these guys go whole hog and dress up like trolls, but it sure sounds like they do. And the cover features a pretty awesome illustration of a beer drinking troll and his mad beast pet, seemingly carved into the trunk of an old tree. Nice! Only a few of these around...
We wrote extensively about this mysterious and bizarre caveman doom duo a few lists back, and plan on reviewing all 4 of their amazing releases eventually, this being the second (we reviewed Forest Of Doom on list #254). And elsewhere on this list you'll also find a review of the equally amazing Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch, a Trollmann side project which is essentially the exact same band. But for those of you who are discovering Trollmann for the very first time, let's recap:
We have been obsessed with this band since the very first time we heard them years and years ago. We have spent the last 6 years or so trying to track down their records, as well as a place where we could order enough so we could review them and share them with the AQ faithful, who like us, truly appreciate the bizarre and the fucked.
And you don't get more bizarre and fucked than Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg. Well, to begin with, they're called Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg!! They have record titles like Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars and Dark Clouds Blacken The Sky On The Eve Of The Thousandth Sacrifice and Tolling Beyond The Tombs Of Ancient Grimnity and Forest Of Doom. They have a similar sounding side project called Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch! The band members are pictured in drawings on the back of the cd, one as a strange little bearded gnome/elf sitting on a huge toadstool, the other a bearded furclad mountain man leaning on a mighty axe. The gnome is named Belegur and is credited with "Cosmic keys to gates unknown." The mountain man is Thundarr, and is credited with "Rumblings Of Doom, Prophecies Of Times To Come." For those of you well versed in that sort of thing, you'll realize that this duo is just bass and keyboards, which is remarkable in its own right. But the fact that Trollmann play a sort of medieval Skepticism style slow motion doom sludge with just bass and keyboards it seems even more amazing.
So there it is, if you're anything like us, it almost doesn't even matter what they sound like. But thankfully they are just as amazing and fucked as all that would lead you to imagine. While ostensibly Trollmann are a doom band, their peculiar brand of doom owes as much to William Basinski and Philip Jeck, at least sonically, as it does to Skepticism or Thergothon. Part of that is due to the incredibly lo-fi recording quality, tape hiss, and amp crumble, distortion that threatens to fall to pieces, a slow loping dronelike dirge that traverses strange landscapes of grit and glitch, of rumble and murky murmur. It's almost like Skepticism recorded by William Basinski, the tapes shoved in a box and stashed in an attic for 30 years, only to be rediscovered and released in all their slow motion crumbling drone doom glory.
Just bass and keyboards, Trollmann trudge through 4 songs in 51 minutes, huge sprawling expanses of murky muddy black ooooooooze, Black Mayonnaise cover Burzum? Maybe, if the results were then dubbed hundreds of times onto the crappiest tapes imaginable. But this is almost too delicate and dark, too lilting and lovely to be doom. But doom it is. A glorious soft focus dreamlike doom. Way less melodic than Forest Of Doom, Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars just might be our favorite Trollmann yet, imagine the songs of SUNNO))) and Thergothon and Skepticism reimagined by Tim Hecker, William Basinski and Philip Jeck. A late night, moonlit, drift through the branches of a black forest, the crackle of dead leaves, the creaking of bare branches, the black cloak of night a thick fuzzy shroud. So completely and utterly mind blowing. One of our all time essential 'doom' discs for sure.
Not sure what else to say about these guys that we haven't already said. If you've somehow managed to miss our reviews of their first couple records, Forest Of Doom and Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars, as well as the Trollmann side project Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch, for chrissakes, do yourself a favor and just order all three. And this one while you're at it. Check out the other reviews for a more in depth history of what has to be our all time favorite caveman doom duo, but to briefly recap:
Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg. C'mon, they're called Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg!! They have record titles like Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars and Dark Clouds Blacken The Sky On The Eve Of The Thousandth Sacrifice and Tolling Beyond The Tombs Of Ancient Grimnity and Forest Of Doom. They have a similar sounding side project called Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch! The band members are pictured in drawings on the back of the cd, one as a strange little bearded gnome/elf sitting on a huge toadstool, the other a bearded furclad mountain man leaning on a mighty axe. The gnome is named Belegur and is credited with "Cosmic keys to gates unknown." The mountain man is Thundarr, and is credited with "Rumblings Of Doom, Prophecies Of Times To Come." For those of you well versed in that sort of thing, you'll realize that this duo is just bass and keyboards, which is remarkable in its own right. But the fact that Trollmann play a sort of medieval Skepticism style slow motion doom sludge with just bass and keyboards it seems even more amazing.
Phew, there's more of course, but that's it in a nutshell. Not only are they mysterious, and weird, and possessing a what-the-fuck quotient that's through the roof, the music is fucking amazing! This is not that so weird it's good, or so retarded it's amazing kind of thing, this is absolute genius. Dark and creepy, heavy and sloooooooooooooooow, minimal sludge soaked abstract ambient doom. Or something. Just bass and keyboards, spewing an unholy flow of low end throb, and grinding downtuned slither. The keyboard drones and spreads out in a fuzzy blur, only occasionally offering up some sort of melodic counterpoint to the bass, as it trudges sluggishly onward.
Of all the Trollmann records, Dark Clouds is probably the heaviest, the meanest, the least melodic and the most intense. The first two tracks, both shockingly under 3 minutes, set the tone, the first, is some sort of slow motion post rock drift, a thick wash of grinding low end sludge beneath garbled demonic whispers while above drift absolutely dreamy slow drifting harmonics. The second track is a stunner, almost 'rocking', at least by Trollmann standards, some sort of primitive caveman hardcore, huge throbbing, ultra distorted downtuned buzz, with fuzzed out Butthole Surfers-ish guitar leads, and super distorted death metal grunts a stumbling hyper aggressive pummel. But after that, it's back to business as usual. Long slow extended doomy drifts. Average track length hovering at about 15 minutes, the bass a throbbing, glacial presence, the riff stretched out into eons, each note reverberating and pulsing into oblivion before the next kicks in. The keyboard just adding another layer of buzzing sludge. The bass sometimes starts to stutter and pulse, creating some sort of super blown out low end rhythm, stumbling over a thick wash of keyboard buzz, before settling back down into its glacial groove.
Epic and massive and bewildering, hypnotic and bizarre and fucking brilliant!
We have been obsessed with this band since the very first time we heard them years and years ago. We have spent the last 6 years or so trying to track down records by this band, as well as a place where we could order enough so we could review them and share them with the AQ faithful, who like us, truly appreciate the bizarre and the fucked.
And you don't get more bizarre and fucked than Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg. Well, to begin with, they're called Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg!! They have record titles like Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars and Dark Clouds Blacken The Sky On The Eve Of The Thousandth Sacrifice and Tolling Beyond The Tombs Of Ancient Grimnity and Forest Of Doom. They have a similar sounding side project called Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch! The band members are pictured in drawings on the back of the cd, one as a strange little bearded gnome/elf sitting on a huge toadstool, the other a bearded furclad mountain man leaning on a mighty axe. The gnome is named Belegur and is credited with "Cosmic keys to gates unknown." The mountain man is Thundarr, and is credited with "Rumblings Of Doom, Prophecies Of Times To Come." For those of you well versed in that sort of thing, you'll realize that this duo is just bass and keyboards, which is remarkable in its own right. But the fact that Trollmann play a sort of medieval Skepticism style slow motion doom sludge with just bass and keyboards it seems even more amazing.
How can you not love this band already? It gets even better when you finally face their dreamy doomic meanderings. Huge downtuned bass, long stretches of droning crumbling low end. Minor key guitar lines drifting lazily over the top. Playful Renaissance faire style melodies hover over super doomy slow motion bass riffs. Long stretches of massive funereal sludge, each one a lower register death march like trudge, but with creepy quivering keyboards above the roiling blackness. Deep spoken vocals intone mysterious wisdom, over simple wandering bass lines and fluttering flute like synth. Once in a while, the keyboards and the bass will sync up and begin playing the same melody, which turns the song into some weird sounding caveman classical music.
This band is so totally out there. So gorgeously lugubrious and depressive, but with strangely cheerful and sometimes completely incongruous keyboard melodies. It's like wandering through some ancient world, wandering from tiny village to creepy haunted woodland and back again. So totally amazing. One of our favorite bands EVER. We'll try to review all the other records soon as well as the Trollmann side project Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch!! Stay tuned.
If Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg were a cult, a shadowy forest horde of trolls and cavemen, like we had always imagined (hoped?), we would be right there beneath the heavy canopy, eyes wide in the arboreal darkness, bowing before Thundarr and Mordraaneth, trudging through the woods all glassy eyed, chanting in unison, letting Trollmann's subsonic vibrations lull us into a strange doomed trance, filthy and unkempt, clad in loin cloths, faces painted with black mud, spears in hands, first-borns sacrificed, we would gladly give up our daily lives, to serve their trollish dominion. But instead, Trollmann are just a human UK doom duo, keyboards and bass, and if our wild obsession alluded to in the above ramblings didn't clue you in, we LOVE these guys, and for now, will have to make do with raving maniacally about how awesome they are and getting our hands on every possible shred of recorded music they've produced. At least until they actually do become a cult.
To be honest, we were always sort of convinced that Trollmann was some bedroom recorded side project. Some metal guy just sort of experimenting and exploring sounds and soundscapes. The purported facts were just too good to be true, a caveman/troll duo, one member named Thundarr, responsible for "Rumblings of doom" and "Prophecies of times to come", the other member called Mordraaneth, he responsible for "Cosmic keys to gates unknown". The band members always pictured on the record sleeves in drawings, bearded, carrying clubs, seated on huge toadstools. Album titles like Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars and Dark Clouds Blacken The Sky On The Eve Of The Thousandth Sacrifice. It all seems sort of absurd, until you actually hear the music, then it all suddenly makes some sort of impossible sense. It's like a doom metal Land Of The Lost. We all headed down to the club to see some doom band play, but got sucked into some other dimension, and ended up prostrate before Thundarr and Mordraaneth, as they proceeded to create a music, both beautiful and otherworldly, heavy and dreamlike, spreading over us like a black cloud.
So imagine our surprise when we discovered, there was a LIVE recording of Trollmann. Performing on this plane, in this time, to be witnessed by mere mortals. How could that be possible? And where could such a momentous performance take place? Well, here it is. Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg's very first live Aktion, a low end doom drone ritual performed where else but... IN A PUB!!! That's right, the Tut 'N Shive. The good ol' pub down on the corner.
Even just listening, you can practically hear the pub slowly transforming into some vine draped cave, dank and dark, lit from within, some unearthly glow, while two shadowy figures lurk on a small stage-like outcropping of rock. And proceed to fill the room, with viscous black beauty. The only real distraction from this sonic transformation is the between song reaction. 20 or 30 punters, pints in hand, cheering, clapping and hooting, laughing and talking before the next huge wave of black bile comes washing over them. It's not so much distracting as surreal. To imagine this music actually being performed, in a pub, in front of a crowd. It's actually pretty amazing, if not a little unreal.
Three looooooooooooong tracks. The first, begins with a strange throbbing bass, pulsing beneath a glimmering, shimmery keyboard drone, the bass slowly transforming into a huge lurching bass riff, repeated over and over, a totally mesmerizing slow motion doom groove, with huge monstrous guttural vocals all wrapped in thick sheets of amplifier buzz and cavernous reverb. Most definitely the heaviest Trollmann yet, but as it progresses, the sound becomes more fuzzy and the notes less distinct... eventually fading into black.
The second begins with a thick swirl of rumbling low end, glowing and growling, shifting glacially, the overtones beating against each other, a thick dense black cloud of sound, slowly modulating and subtly changing shape. While beneath the roiling blackness, the keyboard offers up a drifting melancholy shimmer, simple mournful melodies that hover and slowly fade, Trollmann at their most dreamlike and ambient. But before long, this droning black shimmer begins to build, slowly swelling into a super majestic, cinematic dirge, massive soaring low end melodies, howled anguished vocals, like Moss playing Godspeed, but then slowed down and somehow rendered impossibly fuzzy and blissy, while remaining intense and threatening.
The final ritual, sounds a bit like Total or Sunroof!, but only if their instrumental arsenal consisted of nothing but bass guitars and HUGE Stonehenge like speaker cabinets, a near static wall of throbbing low end sound wrapped like thick black drifts around a soft shimmery, distant melody, a melancholia drifting well beneath the rumble and whir, eventually becoming more and more tangled, the track becoming so blown out and blurry, so grainy and soft focus it almost sounds like some sort of Pop Ambient Doom.
As disappointed as we are, that Trollmann do in fact exist in the mortal plane, and do practice their strange sonic alchemy in local pubs, the music still compels us, mesmerizes us, possesses us, it blackens our ears and our souls, and thus we are at the ready, to gather up an army, to slip free of this world, to strip off our clothes, to paint our faces and march bravely into the black forest, to serve the mighty Trollmann...
The time has come. Hard to believe. Trollman in the flesh. Live. Their mortal forms revealed to all. Thundarr and Mordraaneth. Rumblings Of Doom, Prophecies Of Times To Come, Cosmic Keys To Gates Unknown. All before our very eyes.
Not sure what we were expecting, so much of Trollmann was mystery, those strange drawings on the cds, the bizarre monickers, the lengthy song titles. And hell, the sound. Huge expanses of slow motion doom. Hellish drones spread out like a black fog. We were sort of expecting some sort of SUNNO))) thing. Dry ice, hoods, robes, back lit shadows. But nah, that's a little too contrived. Maybe they would be hidden behind some stones, or huge curtains. Or maybe they would be monsters, creatures of the night, exposed for the very first time, a horrific but impossibly compelling sight.
No matter how you slice it, with a mysterious band, it's hard not to be disappointed, and to be totally honest we were a little at first, but then, the whole thing became more and more surreal, and it was hard not to love these guys even more.
It starts with skeletal, taciturn looking long hair man in a long sleeve Burzum t-shirt, seated at a keyboard in front of a huge black tapestry of a long haired, mustachioed skull wearing an Indian headress above crossed swords. Beside him, stands another long haired fellow, in jeans and a black t-shirt, holding a black bass. All to the strains of a skull rattling low end doomdrone. But then the camera pulls back to reveal the fact that they seem to be outside, DURING THE DAY! They also seem to be under a bridge. Beneath a brick arch, with a muddy hillside in the background, trees and bushes. On the wall behind the band in the background a strange brass plaque, and what appears to be a pig's head on a stick. The whole thing is filmed with a super jittery camcorder, sudden unexpected zooms, face, fingers on strings, the dirt hillside in the background, the skull on the tapestry, and while the band plays, you can hear people talking, obviously not that into the band, one guy even comes to the front of the stage, beer in hand, and begins to taunt the band, making hand gestures and mugging fro the crowd. Someone in the audience yells "You're fucking SHITE!!!". People laugh, but the band remain expressionless, intent on the harsh soundworld they're weaving beneath this bridge.
The second track begins the same way, the taciturn man seated at his keyboard, beneath the Indian skull, but at this point, either the cameraman is getting bored, or has gotten too drunk to really keep the camera still or keep his attention on the band. Lots of jittery shots of the floor, the wall beside the band, the band members' feet, the crowd, drunk dudes and cute metal girls, amps, the trees behind the stage, the houses on the other side of the bridge, and most bizarrely of all, a couple of little dogs, one of whom proceeds to run back and forth in front of the stage, seemingly unperturbed by the roaring doomic dirge emanating from the speakers. And the cameraman seems unduly interested in the dog, considering he is meant to be capturing the slow motion might of Trollmann. Much more crowd chatter this time around, but somehow it just adds to the sound. Laughing and inane drunken conversations are inadvertently woven into the black fabric of Trollmann's sound. A bespectacled man mouths "Awesome. Fucking awesome... " Someone holds a cigarette beneath the camera letting the smoke whip by the lens like the world's most inexpensive special effect. All the while, Trollmann remain impassive, statue like, emitting an impossibly gorgeous ambient dirge, chanted vocals, over a pulsing bass drone and shimmery keyboards. Almost like Moss crossed with SUNNO))) only with Gregorian chant-like vocals. The whole thing is incredibly surreal, the camera bobbing from the ground to the sky to the band to the crowd and back again, the sky darkening behind the band, the crowd growing less and less distinct, and more like featureless shadows, wraiths... it's somehow sort of perfect.
Outside of the camera panning back to reveal a troll atop a toadstool clutching his keyboard, and a huge furry caveman with a club in one hand and a bass guitar in the other, performing on the edge of a fiery abyss, wreathed in clouds of vampire bats and thick curls of black smoke, we really couldn't have wished for more...
It's finally here. The fourth part of the Trollmann quadrilogy, a mysterious assemblage of four recordings, once kept together in a hidden temple, far beneath the Earth's crust. But over millennia, scattered far and wide. We have long been searching. It took us years to find all four. We first searched in the Forest Of Doom, and soon discovered the first recording, wrapped in a blood soaked cloth and kept at the bottom of a deep well, protected by a strange group of deformed bear like creatures. Once this was in our possession, we struck out in search of the second piece of this mysterious dronedoom puzzle. We soon discovered the second sacred recording by reciting a series of Arcane Runes which Adorned The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars. We holed up in our secret lair, every time the two recordings were brought together they gave off an unearthly glow and emitted some impossibly slow heavy dirgelike sound. We knew we were on the right path.
Years passed, and we found ourselves in a truly strange land, arid and barren, always dark and freezing cold, when suddenly, Dark Clouds Blackened The Sky and it became apparent that it was in fact The Eve Of The Thousandth Sacrifice, and had we tarried a moment longer, the third recording would have been lost to us. Three pieces collected, each recording, a bleak rumbling world of black sound leading us closer and closer to whoever, or whatever is Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg. Perhaps we will never know. We may perish before we have discovered the truth.
Here it is, seemingly ages since we first set out upon this quest, with our final breath, our last ounce of strength, we began Tolling Beyond The Tombs Of Ancient Grimnity, and lo and behold, there it was, the fourth part, the key, the last part of the fourfold sonic grail that is Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg. We may be bidding farewell to this plane, and it may have taken us many lifetimes, but we shall die with a smile on our lips, and ears full of black buzz and cavernous rumbling. Adieu.
What the hell are we talking about? Well, if you're just tuning in, only our most favorite, caveman ultra doom duo EVER, Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg, who we first discovered years ago and as the story above suggests have ever since been trying to track down the rest of their recordings. Recently we finally did, and have been wallowing in Trollmann's peculiar brand of funereal ambient doom ever since. Just bass and keyboards, no drums, no guitars. Each record sonically similar, but each with its own particular sound, every one a different facet of Trollmann's strange sonic world. First their was Forest Of Doom, then there was Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars, after that there was Dark Clouds Blacken The Sky On The Eve Of The Thousandth Sacrifice, and now, we have Tolling Beyond The Tombs Of Ancient Grimnity, quite possibly the prettiest and most ambient of the four, but no less ominous and dark.
Tolling begins with a simple, subtle slow motion bass line, over which drifts a dreamy melancholy synth melody. Dark and mournful and vaguely foresty, this drifts on and on an on, very trance like, until about half way through the track's 15 minutes, the bass suddenly becomes distorted, and the track becomes somehow creepier and more intense, the same melody, the same loping rhythm, but wrapped in a tattered cloak of crumbling distortion. Some strange blend of new age, dark ambience and doooooom. At times it almost sounds like a doom metal Three Mile Pilot.
Track two is another epic, 17 minutes, beginning with a simple buzzing low end, a rumbling drone, that seems to spread like some viscous black liquid, gradually growing more and more dense, the low end pulses closer and closer together until a rhythm seems to surface. The keyboard joins in, offering haunting atonal notes, that hover and drift above the monotonous throb, angular and ultra creepy. The bass and keyboard all tangled up in unlikely melodies and weird dissonant tangles, almost like abstract free jazz Trollmann if you can imagine such a thing. But even at its most jagged and atonal, it still manages to be dark and droney. And really really creepy.
The album closer, the 11 minute long title track, begins with some shimmery harmonics, before the bass kicks in, all super fuzzy and ultra blown out, not so much weaving a melody, as laying down layer after layer of thick fuzz, a haunting black riff stretched out into long stretches of rumbling whir, while the harmonics in the background become more and more dense. The entire track building in intensity, a furiously buzzing lugubrious crawl, that suddenly fades to silence.
We've written plenty about the mysterious men behind Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg, Belegur on "Cosmic keys to gates unknown" and Thundarr on "Rumblings Of Doom and Prophecies Of Times To Come", and the other recordings, just check elsewhere on the AQ site, but Tolling is as good a place to start as any, and if you're anything like us, you too will be mesmerized by the strange sounds of Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg, and will embark on your own spiritual quest to track down all of their sacred recordings (we've made it a bit easier, as we carry 'em all! Including an amazing live record, AND a live dvd, where the men of Trollmann reveal their mortal forms!)
Needless to say, utterly recommended.
On last week's list we reviewed What's The Hubub Bub from Tronics, a lost classic from this early eighties post punk / protest folk / art rock one man band, and described said record as a "twistedly brilliant DIY post punk holy grail", which if you've been into the store recently, you've no doubt heard more than once, cuz it gets played like crazy, a head spinning mix of minimal punk folk, catchy as fuck post punk anthems and weirdo collages and experimental electronics. Seriously ahead of its time, and honestly, every time we play it in the store, someone comes up to see what we're playing, and more often then not ends up buying a copy. Say! What Is This? is a sort of companion, a collection of odds and sods, most of which have never been heard before, and while it has much in common with Hubub, it's much more straight ahead punk rock / post punk. Opener "Punk People" sets the mood, with a main riff, that sounds like it could be some Toy Dolls B-side, bouncy bass, crunchy, jangly guitars, and a killer hook, a little bit glammy, catchy as all get out, it ranks right up there with "Shark Fucks" on Hubub as a song we get stuck in our heads constantly.
The rest of Say! What Is This? ain't too shabby either, the lo-fi, reverb drenched pop punk blowout "Do You Hear Me", the angular punk folk dirge "Squiddly Diddly", which sounds like it could have ended up on Hubub, the live garage rock jam "Wild Cat Rock", the fifties rock sounding doo wop-ish "Tonight", the short sharp burst of bass driven punk freakout of "Punk Noise", the almost new wave power poppy sounding "Luna Love", which almost sounds like a Replacements song, and the closer, a fuzzy garage stomp called appropriately "Goodbye", and peppered throughout, still more punky poppy gems, that while not nearly as weird as anything on Hubub, are still so goddamn great! Recommended for sure!
What's The Hubub Bub is a twistedly brilliant DIY post punk holy grail from a group known simply as Tronics, not so much a group as the work of one man, Ziro Baby, and his peculiar brand of post-punk / folk-punk /art-rock / protest music sounds relevatory even today. Originally released at the beginning of the eighties, this record must have really blown minds back then. Equal parts singer/songwriter punk folk songsmithery, minimalist punk primitivism, and ahead of its time tape experiments and sound collage, What's The Hubub Bub has been floating around the underground for 30 years now, with just a track or two popping up on obscure comps, which is hard to believe considering how fucking great this whole record is.
The first half tends more toward proper songs, although the record begins with the sounds of sirens, before in swoop brittle and angular guitars, languid and psychedelic, simply strummed and darkly jangly, accompanied by simple hand percussion, opener "How Do You Do Again" is crazy catchy, repetitive and mantra like, stream of consciousness lyrics, sort of sung/spoken, it's easy to hear the sort of influence this band has had on contemporary groups like Sic Alps (SA's Mike Donovan is a HUGE fan!), and that song sets the template, mostly one or two parts, looped and repeated, minimal lyrics, also repeated over and over, some songs have a distinctly fifties / sixties style pop sound, "Helsinki" is like some classic Beatles or Kinks song arranged for tinny guitar and hand drums. But it's right around "Space Message" that things start to get really weird, a brief blast of static, and garbled FX, with Tronics mainman (only man?) Ziro transmitting from the ether, his voice becoming equally garbled, very Conet Project sounding, and really, that signals a sort of seismic sonic shift, cuz the rest of the record, while rife with more punk-folk ditties, is also peppered with strange sonic experiments and collaged tape loops. There's the old timey rock and roll of "The Other Man" and then the murky droned out balladry of "Alone", that sounds like the saddest, warbliest Joe Meek outtake ever, but if any record was back loaded it's this one. Cuz then there's "Intro", which is in fact a sprawling bit of early sampledelia, bird song, weird voices, tape hiss, and strange effects, echo drenched samples of a sobbing woman, maudlin piano, snippets taped off the radio, bursts of jagged distorto guitar, little bits of orchestra, and symphonies, and what sounds like TV theme songs, all layered into a fantastic bit of psychedelic avant sound collage, and that leads right into what might be the greatest Tronics song EVER, "Shark Fucks", catchy, and anthemic, ridiculous lyrics, a main hook that KILLS, a wicked chorus, still just guitar and distorted drum (just one drum), with laid back, drawled vox, it will instantly get lodged in your brain, and you'll want to play it over and over and over, we have been, probably driving people insane, but we LOVE it! We're actually kind of amazed this song hasn't been covered a million times, it's SOOOOO good. Totally worth the price of admission, especially when he slips into some weird garbled underwater vocals, presumably just made with his mouth and not any actual FX.
Once you make it past "Shark Fucks", if you ever do, there's the primitive minimal fuzz-guitar punk of "I'm A Diver", also crazy catchy, and then things finish off with another sound experiment, the two part "Piece For A Galaxy Bar Jukebox", the first part, all pulsing sci-fi electronics, a dark shadowy kosmische, that gets people coming up to see what we're playing, every time it comes on in the store, moody and minimal and haunting, it's only three minutes, but it's the kind of thing we could listen to forEVER. The second part is still more sci-fi electro weirdness, this one less shimmery and droney, and more percussive and rhythmic, percolating bloops, that explode into jagged shards of distorted synth, and again, we would have loved if it stretched out for 10 or 15 minutes instead of just two...
So completely bafflingly brilliant, and utterly essential. A new unanimous favorite for sure. We also got another Tronics reissue, Say! What Is This?, which we'll review next time, but if you want that one too, just ask!
Two new releases from UK boutique label Paradigms this list, both continuing Paradigms' shift toward sounds more abstract and ambient. An eclectic label for sure, we'd imagine there's definitely some fucked up heaviness lurking in the future, bit for now, we're happy to just drift through gorgeous hazy soundscapes with this latest disc from a group called Tropes, the work of German vocalist and soundscaper Susan Bauszat.
The sounds here are delicate and crystalline, shimmery, gauzy and utterly dreamy, but not without some ominous stirrings, the music is all soft muted synths and strings, guitar, flute, violin, all washed out and blurred into reverb drenched streaks, the perfect backdrop for Bauszat's layered vocals, tangled harmonies, dense and complex, but ethereal and angelic. Think Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Islaja, 4AD record and even more modern cd-r stuff like Grouper and Inca Ore. Dark and mysterious, lush expanses of billowing glistening sound, underpinned by shortwave buzz, insectoid skitter, bits of subtle glitch, swooping backwards melodies and all manner of soft focus sonic texture, but at it's heart the sound of Tropes is a simple stirring folk, vocals lustrous and emotive, drifting dreamlike through clouds of shimmer, abstract tangles of acoustic guitar wound gently around minimal electronic rhythms,soft washed out whirs and haunting cinematic strings. So lovely.
LIMITED TO 750 COPIES. Packaged in a mini lp style jacket, wrapped in a hand stamped brown paper outer sleeve.
Tropic Of Cancer released a couple of singles on the unsmiling techno imprint Downwards that went out of print rather quickly and became highly collectible, and now we have this 12" ep that collects the material from those singles (minus a Richard H. Kirk remix) of ethereally goth, electronic dourness. Then, Tropic Of Cancer was a duo of Camella Lobo and Juan Mendez (aka Silent Servant), and these liminal, elusive songs whisp hypnotically around a spindly electronic rhythms with chiming downtuned guitar strumming lifted from Roland S. Howard and a vocal ghostliness that makes us think of Grouper as a goth-girl. All great things!
There's the amphetamine fueled goth of the Sisters Of Mercy and Bauhaus with all of their wastoid glam-punk vamping and sexually nihilistic anthems; and then there's the soporific romanticism that is equally as bleak, but softened by a couple bottles of blood red wine and a tear stained visage. This latter vantage point eschews any wild-mood-swing mania in favor of a maudlin introspection captured in the empty spaces of the latter halves of Joy Division's Closer and The Cure's Seventeen Seconds (or Faith, your choice). Here lies the aesthetic of Camella Lobo's Tropic Of Cancer. Over the past few years, Lobo has earned a cult following through her affiliations with the Sandwell District's Karl O'Connor (who produced this album) and Juan "Silent Servant" Mendez (who partnered with Lobo in writing much of the early material), although her work shares little of the brutalist architectural modes of Sandwell's techno thump. Instead, it is all ghostly whisps and a gloomy weightlessness suspended over skeletal melodies and the sparest of rhythms.
Restless Idylls is her debut album and holds a very steady course set forth by those singles and EPs she crafted with Mendez. Highly spatialized, the songs push her haunted croon into dusty corners bumping up against spider webs and black lace. behind the foregrounded one-two-one-FOUR slow-motion drum programming that she uses almost exclusively. Between these two bookends, guitars, bass, and synths glide with an elegant ease, even as the moods she is crafting are ponderous and melancholy. "More Alone" is the closest thing that could be qualified as a single, with a considerably more uptempo variation on her heartbeat rhythms and death-disco synth lines. The uniform emotional torpor of the album becomes rather hypnotic once you get locked inside the album with its slow pulsing rhythms and tremulant wash of melting, sad-girl echo. Dejected and blighted, nice!
In conjunction with the archival material on the other 12" just released, Blackest Ever Black has issued three new tracks of glacially paced shoegazing, ethereal goth from Tropic Of Cancer, now just the solo work of Camella Lobo. These songs offer a deft update to the skeletal production of The Cure's Faith, with bleary synth wash, saddened guitar strum, and drum machines all drenched in sprawling reverb, over which Lobo's vocals conjure theatrical somberness with considerable panache.
We first heard from Tropical Trash on a split cassette with No Copper (we have a few copies left if you want one!), their track was definitely cool, but also listening to this 7" now a bit misleading, but it seems that perhaps that track was intended for the split, as it was super heavy and noisy and abstract, fusing jazzy avant noise with tripped out experimental abstraction. Which is definitely a bit different that what's to be found here, although not completely removed. TT seem to traffic in a sort of chugging churning noise rock, at least on the A side, thick angular riffs, tribal drumming, weird mathy arrangements, strange sing songy vocals, buzzing distorted melodies that mirror the vox, rife with some surprising poppiness, a distinctly indie rock vibe going on for sure. Loose and ramshackle, with the song occasionally devolving into a seemingly random free noise splatter before lurching right back into action.
The B side offers up a handful of shorter songs and finds TT cranking up the volume a bit, definitely heavier and punkier, sounding in places like a supercharged Polvo or Pitchblende, weird chords, still more mathiness, but still plenty of melody and catchiness as well as the occasional punky blow out and some cool tripped out droniness. Features members of Siltbreeze outfit Sapat.
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES. Pressed on white vinyl! In handscreened covers with photo copied inserts.
CLASSIC DOOM METAL. Can't get much more classic short of being one of the original Black Sabbath albums, really. Here's the long-awaited reissue of this, the 1984 debut from legendary Chicago doom-mongers Trouble. Alongside Candlemass and Pentagram and Saint Vitus, Trouble were the true heirs in the '80s to the Sabbath throne. And their mild case of Christianity only adds to the doomed vibe (ever read Revelations?) without being overtly preachy and goodytwoshoes like some other "white metal" bands were (Stryper ferinstance). And anyway, we really feel that religious belief totally adds to doom metal. Sabbath's "After Forever" made that official long before Trouble's Psalm 9... which isn't this album's original title, actually. It was self-titled when it first came out, but then they self-titled their fourth, Rick Rubin produced effort as well, so this got renamed. The Rick Rubin one is yet to be reissued, we're hoping it will 'cause it's quite possibly our favorite Trouble album, but this certainly is also an essential, containing several of their most awesome, best-loved tunes, including "The Tempter", "Assassin", "Bastards Will Pay" and eventual title track "Psalm 9". Plus it's also got the instrumental "Endtime" (later covered by Confessor), and their own cover of "Tales Of Brave Ulysses" by Cream!
If you haven't heard Trouble before, well... think Black Sabbath, yes, but different. They've got their own stamp on the trad. doom metal thing. It's fastern'd you'd think. And heavier than their forebears, due to the twin guitar lineup. And already here on Psalm 9, singer Eric Wagner has his raspy (almost Axl Rose-ish, actually) pipes tuned-up proper. It's one of those so recommended, that we're jealous of those of you who'll be hearing it for the first time things!
And this new, deluxe, digitally remastered edition comes with not only a booklet full of photos and liner notes, but also a bonus DVD disc featuring the band performing on a local Chicago Public Access TV show way back in 1982! They're lip-synching, but they look cool -- and the interview portions are so inadvertently hilarious we're actually impressed that these guys weren't too embarrassed to allow it on here. So even if you already have this album, true Trouble fans would be wise to invest in this reissue as well.
First, some background. Just as black metal began back in the '80s, with Venom and Mercyful Fate, so did "white metal", its Christian opposite, developing into a scene of bands like Barren Cross, Bloodgood, Bride, Sacred Warrior, and most famously Stryper, most of whom who recorded for specifically-Christian record labels, the bands themselves often considering themselves primarily as ministers, more than musicians. Most of those bands for some reason sounded a lot like Queensryche - and a lot of 'em are quite good, if you don't mind the preaching.
Then there's Chicago's legendary Trouble. These guys were tagged as a Christian band, and yeah they're believers, and you can hear it in their lyrics, but they stuck to the secular music industry, and probably broke a few commandments - among 'em "thou shalt have no gods before me", 'cause they definitely worshipped Black Sabbath first and foremost!! Pretty sure they had some other secular interests too, like pot and LSD. They fit in more with Candlemass and Pentagram than with Stryper that's for sure.
Run To The Light was Trouble's third album, from 1987, and it's some folks' here's favorite next to their Rick Rubin produced self-titled fourth album from 1990, which is still out of print. While their earlier two albums, which we've reviewed before, Psalm 9 and The Skull, are revered classics, we think Trouble stepped it up here, with better production and a new drummer, delivering everything you'd want from a Trouble platter: the killer heavy riffs, the twin guitars, the slow sad melodies, the psychedelic studio effects, the prayerful doomed vibes...
It's trad, classic doom metal without being super slow. While there's chugging doom paced parts, for sure, there's also galloping fast speed metal riffery and drum beats in lots of the songs. Ripping solos too.
The lyrics are Christian-based, but in an allusive, suggestive way, rather than citing chapter and verse like many more overtly preachy Christian bands. They're in the tradition of Black Sabbath's "After Forever" - warnings about bad stuff that might happen if you don't live right, in the light: "In the light is our salvation / pain is just a memory / in the light you will find the truth / all the answers for those who want to know / I wanna know", which goes well with the dire, doomy music. And again, like Black Sabbath, they really sound like they mean it, giving this music so much more emotional and spiritual weight than most other rock, pop, or metal. Their singer, Eric Wagner, didn't exactly cop Ozzy though, he has his own unique voice and vocal style, nasal, raspy and piercing, sometimes low and melodic, often wailing and shrieky, always gripping, urgent and sincere. Perfect for Trouble.
Now, Run To The Light!!
Must be a cold day in Hell. The long rumored, NEW Trouble album is finally here. Been a long time coming. In fact, it seemed like Judgement Day might get here first, that this would never happen, but it has. Chances are, those looking to pick up this expensive import are probably only gonna be fans already, so there's not much need for us to explain just how legendary these Chicago doom metallers are. Let's just say that along with Pentagram, Saint Vitus and Candlemass, in the eighties these guys were the bearers of the Black Sabbath torch...with hints of more psychedelic '60s stuff like Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and the Beatles surfacing in their music as well. Rick Rubin tried to break 'em big back in 1990 but it wasn't to be, though their eponymous Def American debut remains a (sadly out of print) classic. Various breakups, lineups, fuckups, and troubles befell, the band last releasing a studio album in 1995, Plastic Green Head, which easily could have been their swansong, their final epitaph. But twelve long years later they have reconvened (more or less) with the most crucial factor being that original vocalist Eric Wagner is at the mic. When we last heard him, on Dave Grohl's Probot project, it seemed criminal that Trouble wasn't happening at the time and that their future was, as ever, in doubt. Now, at last, at least, they're back (even if this release was damn hard for us to get) and at this point is just nice to hear Wagner crooning in his sincere soaring gargle over some heavy riffs once again!! Like Dio and his rainbows and wishing wells, Eric Wagner has still got Heaven on his mind. Other familiar Trouble tropes, musical and lyrical, abound, from swinging Sabbathy riffage to mellow stoner psych balladry about reaching "the end of my daze". Better than Plastic Green Head? As good as Manic Frustration? Up there with Run To The Light? Er, well, each fan must judge. One thing that's most definitely rad about this record is that they chose to do a cover of "Ride The Sky" by krautrock proto-metallers Lucifer's Friend!
Last list we highlighted the doomier-than-thou deluxe cd+dvd reissue of the 1984 debut from Chicago's classic doom metal squad Trouble. And now, here's the reish of their equally heavy second album, The Skull, originally released on Metal Blade in 1985, which features such Trouble 'hits' as "Fear No Evil" and "Wickedness Of Man", along with its epic centerpiece, the nearly 12 minute "The Wish". As with the debut, you can expect plenty of Christian angst, ponderous Sabbathy riffage, and twin guitar duels!
And, the bonus dvd disc this is packaged with has gotta be pretty exciting for fans: a complete live Trouble concert, filmed at a club called Malo's in Aurora, Illinois, circa 1984. There's an on-screen note at the beginning saying: "The following program is historic in many ways. One of the historic elements of this rare program is the old recording technology." And yeah, sure it's a Nth generation video dub, ultra-grainy and wavey. But with so much heavy metal atmosphere!! Lights, smoke, hair, headbanging... So cool. And they play nearly every song from Psalm 9 and The Skull, plus a couple more, including what would eventually become the title track of their third album, Run To The Light.
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SORRY.UK import.
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Yay, back in print (and now as a two-fer) are these two AWESOME documents of the legendary Washington DC band Trouble Funk's outtasite funkatology. Previously they were reissued as two individual cds on Hank Rollins' Infinite Zero imprint, but have been out of print for some time, so if you don't already have those versions, you'll want this. That is, if you have a rhythmic bone in yer body. Trouble Funk were prime proponents of what's known as Go-Go, a strain of funk that flourished in the DC area exclusively. Go-Go is all about the rhythm, with lots of rolling percussion being the basis for long jams that couldn't be much funkier. Indeed after parts A-B-C-and-D of the non-stop Live album (disc one) you'll be so funked out, especially if you've been behaving like the crowd on the recording, that you might have to take a nap or something before you put on disc two, Early Singles, and have to deal with the likes of "Super Grit" and "Get Down With Your Get Down". Early '80s DC Go-Go at its finest, and that's pretty fine!
The new, five years in the making Witchcraft album is indeed awesome (and we finally just got the vinyl version in, which you'll find elsewhere on this week's list). But OLD Witchcraft, we still love too of course. So how 'bout some new old Witchcraft, sort of, in the form of the long awaited full-length debut from Troubled Horse, a band whose membership includes 3/4ths of the original Witchcraft lineup?! Rocking out with catchy riffs and vintage '70s sounds, these guys are everything we'd hope for from a band with such a pedigree. Comparisons to early Witchcraft are easy, but Troubled Horse get way more bluesy than Witchcraft ever has done, and add some swirling organ to the mix. The singer's style can be also more gruff and rough than that of Witchcraft's Magnus (though with his Swedish accent there's certain similarities too). But the basics are the same, Troubled Horse maybe stronger even in their overt Pentagram worship. The Pentagram is palpable here, indeed some of these tracks, like "Sleep In Your Head", "Shirleen" and especially "Don't Lie" (notable also for its Lovecraftian recitation halfway through) might as well BE new Pentagram songs. They certainly would be if the wizened one, Bobby Liebling, were on the mic. Other '70s era influences are evident too, of course, with tracks like "All Your Fears" coming closer to something a bit country-ish that the Rolling Stones woulda done in a sinister mood. Meanwhile, the twin guitar leads and harmonies of the swinging "Another Mans Name" bring to mind very early Wishbone Ash hard rockers like "Lady Whiskey". And the psych/garage rock side of this (as displayed straight out of the gate on stomping opener "Tainted Water") should appeal big time to fans of Troubled Horse's countrymen Dungen, to cite a more modern (but still retro) comparison. Furthermore, this is definitely for fans of bands like Witchcraft (natch), Horisont, Danava, Graveyard, Gypsyhawk, and Spiders (with whom they also share a member - keep an eye out, hopefully we'll have that band's new album in soon too). Packaged in a slipcased jewel case.
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Ultra limited picture disc from AQ faves Troum. Limited to 444 copies, this gorgeous picture disc (which comes with a swirly numbered magnet as well!) is two blasts of rumbling chaotic drone, occasionally harsh and almost industrial, but more often absolutely dreamy and otherworldly.
Acouasme is the first proper full length in two years from these aQ beloved dronelords, and finds the duo attempting a harsher, more industrial sound, but harsh and industrial, at least in the hands of Troum, ends up sounding way more beautiful than brutal, a series of hypo-drone rituals, dense and dark, droney and dreamy.
Each of the six tracks here is a sprawling wash of groaning metallic buzz and grinding subsonic thrum, pocked with fleeting flecks of melody and driven by abstract rhythmic pulsations, again, not so much harsh, as sinister and cinematic, shadowy and ominous. In fact, much of Acouasme is actually quite lovely, albeit that grim, foreboding sort of loveliness that evokes all sorts of existential dread. Tracks unwind languorously, like a creeping black fog of abstract ambience, occasionally giving way to blurred choral shimmer, or collapsing into rib cage rattling sub-bass throb. Amidst these tranquil soundscapes, lurk both blurry bursts of blackened beauty, and heaving, churning tarpit rhythms, all wreathed in gristled swirls of decayed sound, getting downright heavy at times, but always seeming to settle back into more hazy, hypnotic black drift.
The closer is the most obviously rhythmic, an inky morass of layered swirl and roiled grey noise, wound around strange sonar pings, fractured sine waves, and distant melodies, all driven by a loping, lumbering slowcore beat, the end result sounding a bit like a drugged out, droned out Aluk Todolo, or some lost This Heat record spinning at 16rpm!
For many years now, Troum has been mining one particular sound with few deviations from a signature of darkly smeared drone-instrumentals for guitar, bass, and other sound making machines. Their sound developed out of the post-industrial ambient arena populated by Zoviet France, Lustmord, and Hazard; yet, at the same time, Troum's billowing shadows of mournful melody and subharmonic rumble acted as something of a prototype for the ephemeral metal dirges conjured by the likes of Nadja and SUNNO))). As much as Troum's work has been at the center of a Venn Diagram that overlaps not only those aforementioned projects but also the post-rock dronscapisms of Machinefabriek, Stars Of The Lid, and Jasper TX, Troum (as well as Maeror Tri, the project which preceded Troum) has always sounded like Troum. Their signature is quite unique; and this uniqueness is only trumped by the remarkable consistency in the quality of their recordings. Because of this consistency and because of their ability to bridge the numerous signposts within the increasingly splintered network of drone music, Troum have earned themselves a loyal fanbase.
So for those of you who have been smitten with Troum (like many of us here), save yourself the trouble of reading this missive and just get this album. Their signature sound is firmly entrenched upon Aiws, making the album as good as the best parts of the Tjurkurrpa series and their remarkable collaboration with All Sides. Much has been said about Troum's spiralling grey kaleidoscopes of melancholia and crepuscular fogginess; and all of the hypnotically simple melodies dripping with dronecast effects that have made Troum's previous work so good are all present here on Aiws. Slow building, majestic crescendos steadily evolve out of an expansive dronescaping that Troum have long mastered. Don't expect anything new from Aiws, but who the hell cares when it sounds this great!
It's a bit hard to concentrate with the huge spinning eye at the center of this gorgeous picture disc watching me, though gazing into the swirling eye has a strikingly similar affect to listening to the music on side one of Ajin, a propulsive, sort-of-industrial dronescape, a bit removed from the thick swaths of layered guitar we've come to expect from this German duo. The drones are not static or slow shifting, no they are a swirling, active whirl of abstract melody and subtle sonic swoops, a background blur underpinning the propulsive krautrock rhythms that are the focal point here. Imagine a snippet of Can, or a brief snatch of classic Faust, chopped and looped into a totally mesmerizing sonic mantra. The rhythm shifts subtly, from murky to crystal clear, but never wavers, a rhythmic trip to the outer reaches of the universe or the inner reaches of the soul. The other side (the artwork is subtly and appropriately altered so that now the eyes is closed) is more of Troum's classic minimal whir, the first track, a rumbling slow moving flow of muted guitar and teutonic thrum, dark and thick and ominously tranquil. The final track sounds almost like chamber music Troum, sweetly mournful melodies swoon and keen, haunting and darkly romantic. So lovely.
Gorgeously packaged and designed, ultra thick vinyl picture disc, with the eye image and all manner of design filigree, in a heavy guage plastic sleeve, sealed with a full color sticker, and includes a full color numbered insert.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES WORLDWIDE!!!
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Here's the latest lp from AQ faves Troum, and according to the band themselves this is perhaps their most fully realized work to date. Dark reverberant drones, rich and gorgeousy layered. Everything we've come to expect from Troum. Too bad (or too good, depending on how you approach things like this) it's only been released as a very expensive and very limited picture disc. But it's a super gorgeous disc, the artowrk is a dense and super complex collage of lines and dots and colors and swirls designed by Seldon Hunt, in a silkscreened clear plastic sleeve. Beautiful, both visually and sonically. And if you somehow missed the above warning, this is quite limited and once we run out they are most likely gone for good.
This disc collects two very hard to find pieces of vinyl from this aQ beloved duo, with the 2005 LP Nahtscato first issued by the German imprint Paranoise in an edition of 300 copies and Autopoiesis being a 2004 picture disc from Small Voices. As nice as it is to hear Troum material on vinyl, sinking into 75 minutes of Troum's vast, darkened dronescaping pocked with cinematic, intense loopings and dramatic melodies is a very good way to experience their work. We've carried both of these pieces of vinyl way back when and neither of them are currently available. On both of these records (it's hard to tell where one album ends and the other begins) the billowing dark clouds of ominous guitar drones that have been the trademark of Troum (and their earlier incarnation Maeror Tri) continue unabated in a thick morass of chorus, delay, and reverb effects boxes with occasional accompaniments of pounding tribal rhythms. Troum navigate through cavernous, subterranean spaces where thrumming low end engulfs everything in a blackened pit of emptiness, then dramatically lifts off through their cyclical drone-riffs that build towards impressive crescendos of icy noise and luminous drones. There's also two bonus tracks not found on the original pieces of vinyl. If you missed the opportunity to pick up the vinyl back then, this cd isn't going to be around for terribly long either as the bulk of Troum's catalogue tends to get snatched up in Russia and Eastern Europe.
While always flirting with post-Industrial references through the mechanical resonance of ominous drones, on this limited 10", Troum further explores post-Industrial rhythms as the template for a 'pure emotional expression'. The thick swarms of guitar drones, which dominate the aesthetic of both Troum and their previous group Maeror Tri, are present; however, the a-side to "Darve Sh" is centered on a dense drum machine loop that rumbles forward like a hydraulic engine and has been engulfed in Troum's signature density of miasmic sounds. If my memory serves me right, this track is very similar to (if not taken from) one of the tracks performed at the Edinburgh Castle in San Francisco during their first tour of the US, although there is no information supporting this claim on the record itself. The b-side to "Darve SH" mutes the drum machine, but doesn't remove the rhythm structure, as delay loops and hypnotic samples drive through the buzzing, multi-verb laden guitar drones. Limited and numbered to 500 copies.
Dreaming Muzak was the very first release from Troum, not long after the two members of Troum had disbanded their previous project Maeror Tri in 1998. Originally released as a cassette housed in a tiny pillow in an edition numbering a scant 100 copies, Dreaming Muzak is now available as a cd-r edition, although its long term availability remains unknown. That said, Dreaming Muzak does what Troum and Maeror Tri have always done so very well: drone-on with gritty, psychological undercurrents. If the intent for Troum was to put the listener to sleep, the lulling vibrating patterns certainly have the capacity; but the overall darkness of these sounds will never inspire the most pleasant of dreams. These are shadowy, bleak, and cold sounds which permeate the album, and lend themselves to images of desolate factories spewing a constant stream of black soot in some wintery post-Soviet country. A very nice document from one of our favorite drone acts.
Eald-Ge-Streon reveals a much different Troum than we're used to. This German duo, long time favorites of folks around here (ever since their pre-Troum outfit Maeror Tri) has always delivered gorgeous guitar driven drone music, dark and haunting and hypnotic, which makes sense since Troum also operate the quite excellent Drone label, which specializes in, yep, you guessed it, drones.
Eald-Ge-Streon is a strange record in that it's a sort of odds and ends collection, various recordings begun years ago, left unfinished, or reimagined for various live performances, many finally finished here for the first time, and while the sound is still essentially dronemusic, it's much less guitar driven, much more ethereal and shoegazey, reminding us of Jesu and Nadja and Lovesliescrushing more than the usual suspects. Which is not a bad thing at all.
Epic, majestic, fuzzy, dreamy, washed out, the first track sounds almost pop ambient, thick gauzy swaths of sound drifting, layers upon layers, totally mesmerizing, ethereal, ephemeral, quite beautiful. The second track takes a looped machinelike rhythm, and builds a doom bliss dirge around it, a sort of post industrial shoegaze, that ends up sounding like some recently unearthed gem, except they never really made music like this. "Eolet" is deep drones, but infused with lots of melody, the sound cinematic, soundtracky, dreamy and pretty, not at all gritty or underground, which again is not at all a bad thing.
The rest of the record slips from motorik rhythm driven doom bliss, to soft billowing dreamlike ambience, to tangled blown out almost new wave sounding post industrial crush, to the 16+ minute closer "Crescere", an epic bit of muted drift, that slowly builds to a blackened heaving slab of pulsing pop ambience, laced with gorgeous psychedelic backwards guitar flutter, processed percussion, distant almost new age melodies, all building to an epic, super emotional climax of metallic buzz and sweet swirling shimmer. Fantastic. Comes housed in a super deluxe gatefold digipak designed by Stephen O'Malley with photos by Seldon Hunt.
And while they last, the compact disc version of Eald-Ge-Streon comes with a bonus disc, featuring a brand new 33 minute track, another gorgeously epic chunk of dronemusic, the first nearly ten minutes, a hushed barely there whisper, before the sound thickens, and dark wisps become haunting melodies, the soft buzz grows more rough and dense, transformed into an extended stretch of crumbling distorted low end drift, before the surprisingly melodic, washed out dreamy outro.
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Troum is the dronological duo that was born out of the dissolution of Maeror Tri - easily one of the most emotive drone ensembles ever. Troum's "Framapeis" is a lengthy two track 12" that picks up where Maeror Tri left off, with lumbering dark ambient passages built out of layered guitar washes that slyly provide a semblance of simple melodies and tenative rhythmic structure. These shimmering apparitons of basic song structure gently pass through the thick sonic haze as if they have been sent down from the heavens and filtered through the sediments suspended in the atmosphere. Beautiful, majestic, and haunting, Troum (and the preceeding Maeror Tri) have set the bar very high for drone artists in the future... "Framapeis" is limited to 500 copies.
The title Grote Mandrenke comes from an archaic Saxon dialect, meaning 'the great drowning of men' and refers to a historic storm that struck Europe in January 1362. This Atlantic storm raked across the British Isles and Northern Europe, killing over 25,000 people and creating such a deluge across the coastline of Holland as to aid in the formation of the Zuiderzee, a large inland sea which later became crucial for the political and economic fortunes of the Dutch Empire by the 17th Century. The aQ-endorsed drone-duo Troum takes up this subject with the same allegorical grandeur as Goya or Gericault or Turner might apply to such a subject through their historical paintings. It's all fury and bluster in the huge blasts of droned dissonance leading towards majestic overtures and ethereal gaspings in describing this event of meteorological violence.
In recent years, Troum's shadowy expressionism has developed greater and greater degrees of musical clarity with their pieces aligning closer to the drone-metal dirges of Nadja or Barn Owl. That holds true for the highly dramatic Grote Mandrenke. Emotionally saturated melodies tumble from a buzzsaw take on shoegazed guitars and lurching drum machine rhythms, shifting from one mighty orchestration of processed guitars into another. The mood of Troum's melodies is mostly somber although the sheer beauty of many of their phrases and slippages can considerably brighten the overall atmosphere of this album. One can easily see these torrents of darkened guitars as the manifest force of that 14th century storm, with the beautiful swaths of melody as the Pyrrhic visions of those who may have survived the storm but have a countryside of corpses, debris, and brokeness to sift through. A potent album to say the least.
It goes to show how prolific Troum can be, if we missed the first two entries in the 'power romance' series, which were granted ocean/sea titles and based (in part) on samples from J.S. Bach. This 52 minute piece features multiple movements that ebb and flow into each other. The opening phrases ascend from pastoral orchestral samples (presumably those aforementioned Bach samples) into a soaring crescendo of swirling, emotionally bright tones and loops from trilling strings, girded by those luminously flanged guitars that Troum has mustered for years. Then comes the anthemic surge of a big back-beat from programmed rhythms that sound more like a live drum kit than they've previously produced, giving this movement a feel more like those grand early tracks by Sigur Ros or even Godspeed! You Black Emperor. A subdued melancholic passage of lugubrious murk follows before the duo reprises their classic Troum / Maeror Tri sound of deep, doom-paced basslines and goth-drone melodies which churn through the guitars. The bass climbs to the foreground some 30 minutes into the album with those weeping guitars settling into the distance before another fantastically mesmeric rhythmic blast kicks in. Admittedly, we've been critical of Troum and Maeror Tri for some of their programming choices in the past; but this is a high caliber set of sampling here, with a mid-tempo breakbeat laced with overblown cymbal crashes that has more in common with the complex patterns of Squarepusher than the earlier tribal-industrial rhythms. The finale pools into those saturated drones of evanescent bass and guitar, scraped with just the right amount of distortion. Another great album from these perennial aQ faves...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Troum (Traum is "dream" in the duo's native German, but Troum is ?) mines the nether regions of the subconscious to create waking replications of their nightly visions. Their recordings are far from mere transcriptions of dreams to tape; they are the gossamer residues of once vivid memories, passed through mesmeric filters to slowly dissolve present reality into soft focus fragments of thought. Musically, these translations fall both on the sublime and, at times, on the malevolent side of the ambient divide.
"Sen" -- Troum's contribution to Staalplaat's luminary-laced live-radio-recordings "Mort Aux Vaches" series -- seems fixated on the North Sea, where sheets of black ice creak under the tidal currents that roll onto a rocky beach. Troum sees no need to make any direct references to that imagined metaphor, rather it's implied behind a bleak drone haze of guitars, bells, voice, and keyboards treated with a heavy dose of synthetic cathedral reverb. Troum's post-industrial background is revealed with a churning drum machine which rumbles underneath their complex tonal patterns like an antiquated seaside factory.
Troum, more so than in their previous incarnation as Maeror Tri, has the potential to invoke awe through their hypnogogic expanses of droning sound. Here they push beyond their potential. Also, please note that this only their second cd, and the first is out of print (this is limited as well!), so get it while you can.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!! We managed to get a handful of this vinyl-only release from the German dronescapists Troum. The billowing dark clouds of ominous guitar drones that have been the trademark of Troum (and their earlier incarnation Maeror Tri) continue unabated in the thick morass of chorus, delay, and reverb effects boxes with occasional accompaniments of pounding tribal rhythms. Three lengthy tracks pressed on bright red translucent vinyl.
Latest slab of guitar based whir and drift from these masters of the drone (they do in fact run the DRONE record label after all). Formerly Maeror Tri, Troum�embody the drone, they live, breathe, eat and sleep drones. And it shows. Their records are gorgeous and epic, but seem so effortless, as if the sounds they create are simply channeled through their corporeal forms, but have been created in some fiery forge at the center of an alien planet.�
The first half of this single still sounds like Troum, but is unlike anything we've heard from them, strange looped high end guitar, what sounds like backwards chords, almost choral vocals, dramatic and haunting and cinematic, very much like some super stylized horror movie music almost, warbled and wavery, over a distant grinding low end tone drifting way off in the background, washed over by epic sweeping swells..
The other side is a bit more raw and intense, a seriously corrosive guitarscape, distorted and crumbling chordal buzz, looped and layered into a strange glacial riff, strewn over deep dark swirls of slow shifting sound and haunting minor key melodies. It manages to be intense and fierce but also gloriously washed out and blissful.�
Super�swank, full color covers, full color inserts, and pressed on nice thick vinyl. And of course limited, just not sure -how- limited...
A couple years ago, we started to regularly carry the releases from Mystery Sea, a Belgian label who only release cd-rs of "night-ocean drones" in editions of 100 copies. Unfortunately, there were a bunch of those micro-edition releases that we never managed to get a hold of: Rapoon, Mnortham, Coelacanth, Spiracle, and Troum being some of those we wish we could have tracked down. The good news is that some of these Mystery Sea discs have been resurfacing as proper cds on various labels around the world, both near and far. Troum's contribution to the Mystery Sea project was rumored to be out of print right when it was released; and it's a very good thing that the Russian imprint Faria has made this available again.
Nearly 10 years ago, Troum emerged from the ashes of the post-industrial project Maeror Tri. In this incarnation, the Troum duo focused their sound upon amorphous drone compositions for guitar, bass, accordion, and a shitload of effects boxes. We've long long championed Troum as one of the pinnacles of dark, heavy, guitar-driven dronemusik alongside the likes of Aidan Baker / Nadja, BJ Nilsen, Oren Ambarchi, and SUNNO))). Objectlessness is a mighty fine entry in Troum's storied discography. Two long tracks of deep narcoleptic whirs, marked by Troum's signature infernal rumble, out of which radiant drones soar towards the heavens. They's always balanced the sublime and the nightmarish, the beautiful and the malevolent; and such dualistic metaphors play themselves out within the shadowy cascades of their dronemusic.
The Russian version of Objectlessness features new artwork in a slightly oversized cardboard sleeve with 4 postcards. Limited to 750 copies, which should last a bit longer than the original cd-r, but probably only a little bit longer.
I believe it was 1997 when a small posting came my way stating that Maeror Tri had dissolved. At the time, this German trio had become one of my (Jim's) favorite ensembles alongside the likes of Organum, Skullflower, and :zoviet*france:. Maeror Tri's dedication to grimly focused atmospheric music harbored all of the things that succeeded in the campaigns of industrial and ambient music; and the Maeror Tri anonymity (or at least a mysteriousness about the group that lead to such a reading of their collective persona) certainly enhanced their charm. Albums such as Emotional Engramm and Multiple Personality Disorder had achieved heavy rotation status on my stereo (and still get pulled from the shelves quite often in this day and age); so the news that Maeror Tri was no more was met with sadness. Fortunately, two thirds of the Maeror Tri ensemble had decided to continue on but under the moniker Troum. While the name of this duo was an archaic German word for dream, Troum's pursuit of unconscious symbolism through their heavily processed guitar drones still maintained the ashen darkness that Maeror Tri perpetuated, as was evident on their first CD release Ryna, which originally came out in 1998 on the Belgian label Myotis. It should be noted that Ryna is not the first Troum recording; that honor is held by a cassette called Dreaming Muzak that came housed in a tiny pillow. Ryna quickly went out of print, along with much of the Maeror Tri back catalogue; but thankfully, Troum have repressed this early gem through their own Transgredient imprint. An album of constantly billowing black clouds, Ryna achieves the same dark ambient / dronescape signature that had marked so many great Maeror Tri / Troum releases. On occasion, cracked / decayed loops of rhythmic surging emerged from beyond the horizon of Troum's guitar suites, alluding to a Norse mythological bellow of impending doom and apocalyptic battle. While I've not done the side-by-side taste test of the two albums, the 2007 redux of Ryna appears to much louder and cleaner. Regardless, it's a pleasure to hear this record once again!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Wow, is this a doozy of a reissue. The long out of print Sen record, from guitar drone outfit Troum, originally released as their entry in the Mort Aux Vaches, gets an ULTRA deluxe double vinyl reissue courtesy of the always amazing Equation label.
Before we get into the record itself, we have to talk about the packaging. Especially because the version we got is limited to 97 copies, and except for copies to the band, and a handful of Equation mailorder customers is EXCLUSIVE to aQuarius!! Two lps, both pressed on heavy vinyl, the vinyl is clear with a sepia haze emanating from the center. The lps are housed in a SUPER thick clear PVC gatefold that is sealed with a little velcro button. Inside the gatefold, a thick 7" pouch, which houses three 7" circular 2-sided satin-finish heavy-card inserts along with a sticker and all sealed with a hand-numbered oval sepia sticker. Phew! It really is one of the most breath taking chunks of vinyl we have ever seen. So gorgeous and it weighs a ton. And if that weren't enough, the music inside is equally fantastic.
Troum (Traum is "dream" in the duo's native German, but Troum is ?) mines the nether regions of the subconscious to create waking replications of their nightly visions. Their recordings are far from mere transcriptions of dreams to tape; they are the gossamer residues of once vivid memories, passed through mesmeric filters to slowly dissolve present reality into soft focus fragments of thought. Musically, these translations fall both on the sublime and, at times, on the malevolent side of the ambient divide.
Sen, originally released as part of Staalplaat's luminary-laced live-radio-recordings "Mort Aux Vaches" series, seems fixated on the North Sea, where sheets of black ice creak under the tidal currents that roll onto a rocky beach. Troum sees no need to make any direct references to that imagined metaphor, rather it's implied behind a bleak drone haze of guitars, bells, voice, and keyboards treated with a heavy dose of synthetic cathedral reverb. Troum's post-industrial background is revealed with a churning drum machine which rumbles underneath their complex tonal patterns like an antiquated seaside factory.
Troum, more so than in their previous incarnation as Maeror Tri, has the potential to invoke awe through their hypnogogic expanses of droning sound. Here they push far beyond their potential.
And again LIMITED TO 97 COPIES!!! So get it while you can.
No sound clips, but check out this gorgeous promotional video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg1BhFZM6MM
Finally, the first Troum record to be widely available in the United States, released through Relapse subsidiary Desolation House, and we're pleased to say it's maybe their best yet. Troum are the ambient-drone ensemble that emerged from the dissolution of proto-industrial dronesters Maeror Tri. Unlike the primarily guitar based whir and rumble of Maeror Tri, Troum obfuscate their sound sources, laptops, found sounds, accordians, guitars too maybe, and the results are timeless, mysterious, haunting, ethereal and utterly breathtaking dronescapes. Sigqan is a lengthy three part epic, beginning with rich sonorous foghorn like swells, that ebb and flow, separated by near silence, and slowly building in intensity from warm crescendos to huge doomy pulses. Eventually, these roaring rumbles joined by complementary shimmers of high end, that sound out, and then dissipate like sonic ripples, fading into blackness. The swells slowly grow closer and closer until the edges begin to blur and a subtly more continuous melodic framework begins to emerge and so begins the second movement, a creepy and slightly ominous, slowly fluctuating slow-motion-melody, whose lazily shifting notes keep the sonic landscape dense and rich, and keeps the sounds from flatlining into monochromatic drones. As the piece winds down, the dynamics and melody start to smear together into a warm, diffused fuzzy hum, with the subtle traces of melody sinking deeper and deeper into the dark warmth. The third and final movement was a sonic afterthought, added/recorded later than the first two, but is a pleasantly dreamy coda, with a slightly sunnier tone, a keening upper register melody, stretched out into subtly slithering iridescence with a shuffling, staticky rhythm just below the surface. So nice.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Already in its second pressing -- as the first had been released in an elaborate pyramid and sold out very quickly -- "Symbiosis" is a brief excursion into the dreamily expressive guitar drones of the AQ-favorite, German duo Troum. Well versed in psychoanalysis and its history over the past decade, Troum qualifies their music as a liminal space flickering with the urges and pre-cognitive thoughts of the unconscious part of the brain. Troum manifests these ideas as waves of guitar drones processed through a weighty bank of effects, offering melodic fragments that slowly tumble into repetitions of their saddened forms through vast fields of ambience. "Symbiosis" is certainly another great offering from Troum, with the small twist on their unique sound in that each of the members have produced solo tracks; however, since all tracks are untitled and uncredited, which is which is any one's guess.
If the opening track to this album sounds awfully familiar to the customers here at aQuarius, that's because "Ater" was originally commissioned for the Painted Black compilation on tUMULt - an album of radical demolitions of the Stones' classic track "Paint It Black." The devilish chords from that song loom as a majestic overture above an insistent, infernal cauldron displaying Troum's darkest, most malevolent dronecraft. Troum, being the duo of Stefan Knappe and Martin Glitsch, eschew the vocals and the drums of the Stones' number for just those chords that collapse wearily into a black hole of negative energy. It still sounds as amazing as when Andee issued it on tUMULt back in 2003 (and we still have copies, if you haven't heard it, it's FANTASTIC!!!). As you might guess, Syzygie is a collection of the compilation tracks that Troum produced at the turn of the millennium. This track is a great opening number no matter how you slice it, leading immediately into a comparably pretty track "Makaria" from the Walls Are Whispering compilation on EE Tapes, with a pastoral shimmer from maudlin guitar chords awash with Cocteau Twins' tears. This, like the Painted Black track, is one of the few tracks on this compilation that we were fortunate enough to hear; but much of this material was released on super obscure compilations. Another highlight here is the slow-burning "Fantauma" which predates much of the Nadja crush of doom-drone guitars and machined drum loops by a couple of years. Amidst the cold drone and heavy hypnosis, Troum's consistency is really notable, especially when so many artists release throwaway tracks for compilations; and it makes for a very solid album. It would have been great if Syzygie included their version of "Cold" by The Cure, from the Pornography cover album on Fear Drop; but we suppose we'll have to wait for the next Syzygie volume.
Stefan Knappe of Troum has started the Transgredient label as an outlet for CD releases, thus preserving the vinyl-only purity of his Drone Records label and its ongoing series of seven inch singles. Troum is the extention of the Maeror Tri project which was an incredibly prolific isolationist / post-industrial group throughout the '90s. Armed with a barrage of guitars, miasmic loops, and tricked out reverb / echo / delay effects, Maeror Tri undertook a bleak and at times nightmarish route in search of the drone supreme. While culling from Maeror Tri's extensive drone production techniques, Troum's sound is far lighter -- but still never sounds as gentle (or space-rock-y) as something like Windy & Carl or Roy Montgomery. Repetitive and subtly beautiful melodies rise out of the waters of Troum's cold swirling ambience, which grow in intensity throughout each of the seven lengthy pieces on this disc. While the members of Troum have been recording for well over a decade, it is still a wonder to hear new material as they continue to challenge themselves to improve on the what they seemingly have already perfected: the task of creating the ultimate drone.
