Troum — Eald-Ge-Stréon
Whilst I never thought I’d see it, the influence of Tangerine Dream writ large it seems to be something you can’t ignore these days and certainly no more so than in Elation the opening track of this album. Elation could so easily have been plucked from any late 70s or early 80s TD album (Hyperborea, White Eagle, Exit, Logos it owes a debt to all of them). The only difference being some very deep heavy notes that wouldn’t have been part of the Tangerine Dreams repertoire. Having spent more time during my teenage years than was probably healthy for me listening to TD albums I rather enjoyed Elation and the only negative thing about it was it was too short.
The track Usque follows and whilst it uses some similar elements to Elation (early 80s synth sounds and a similar compositional style to Tangerine Dream) it has a much more rhythmical basis to it starting with slightly phased church bells that lead into an metal bashing sort of percussive loop over which are added the layers of synth sounds. A lovely piece with good use of light and shade with the more powerful elements dropping out of the mix now and again leaving them the opportunity to blast their way back in further into the piece.
The third piece Eolet is a far more sober affair. More straight down the middle ambient with lots of reverb and what sounds like it could be treated guitar along with some stringy sounding keyboard notes. It develops very slowly into a more keyboard based piece. Still with tons of reverb and a very low in the mix rhythm accompanying the keyboard layers.
Ecstatic Forlornness comes with a slight shift away from what’s gone before comes. Basically what sounds like a loop of some middle eastern music accompanied by some drumming and a vocal sound (not actual vocals)start the piece off. As it progress some keyboards come in until for some reason at about 2.40 minutes it seems someone is allowed to go a bit mad with the desk and every now and again everything sounds like it’s being put through a phaser and the volume increases and then everything goes back to normal. Unfortunately ruining what was up to then becoming an interesting piece. The rather bizzare mixing continues and ultimately (for me) spoils the piece.
Dhanu-H is a fairly short piece like track 3 very laid back with what could be some sort of plainsong vocals with a fairly bog standard keyboard chord sequence underneath it. Fairly cinematic would be an apt description. It’s nothing stunning but a welcome return to normality after the manic-ness of the previous piece.
Procession (a Savage Republic cover) treads similar ground to track two. It’s almost as if track four was the middle point and now we’re going backwards through the styles. Martial rhythms on the drums with accompanying massed voices and some string based keyboard sounds. It’s nothing that exciting.
The last piece is the seventeen minute long Crescere and apart from taking rather too long to get started is rather magnificent. It all starts off with long slow deep brooding synth chords with some accompanying string sounds joining in. Everything carries on in this vein for a good five minutes but does start to build up and crescendo until the piece really starts to come into its own when a track running backwards is added to the mix. This works beautifully really pushing the track beyond being just another dark ambient piece into something a little bit more unique all the while more keyboard lines are added and by the time the backwards track is just a subtle addition to the mix you have a pretty intense synth laden track that oozes power. It’s a pretty perfect end to a mixed sort of an album.
As with all these sort s of odds n ends albums you can’t expect it to tick every box for every track but apart from a few scruffy pieces in the middle this is a pretty fine collection of scraps from Troum’s table.