Troum - Tjukurrpa I: Harmonies
(Transgredient)
In the beginning there was... the Word? The Act? No, there was the Drone. And if no one did deep-dream drone like Maeror Tri, no
one does it like Troum, Maeror Tri's successor. Troum's two dreamweavers use no synthesizers, only guitars, bass, wordless voices,
and accordion, in realizing the "dreams dreamed by dreamers who are awake." The Tjukurrpa trilogy, taken from an Aboriginal word
for "dreamtime," isolates and highlights Troum's main attributes: harmonies, drones, and pulsations. This first volume plays up the
duo's lofty, liquid melodies, while taking in the history of drone musics - from the primordial roar of the didjeridu through Eno's
airport ambience. Cello-like undertones give way to the celestial swirl of illusory strings in opener "Wrota Sfer." The star-scaling
"Licht-Brandung" plays like the overture to a world's first dawn, recalling the Auroral symphonics of Stars of the Lid. "Gluoen"
borrows the massed, sacred harmonies of the Seraphic choir. There's cabalistic innuendo in "Zayin" and "Mada Shaunda," as though the
keys of Making and Unmaking have been encoded within each deliberate involution. "Skaunieiis" makes the album's bid for
unutterable beauty with infinitely rippling guitars. Troum reserves its most stellar vision for last, observing the choreography of
night from its point of creation in "Mirrored in You (Dedicated to Martyn Bates)." If you're at all partial to the exploits of more
celebrated dreamstate disciples (you know the names), you owe it to yourself to investigate Troum and Maeror Tri. Begin with
Tjukurrpa I: Harmonies, as this self-released, splendidly packaged edition of 500 is sure to disappear quickly, and move on to
Meditamentum 2 (Manifold), an essential collection of Maeror Tri rarities. It's all good.
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