Drone / ambient.
"Deep beneath the ocean is a world of mystery, wonder, darkness, and
danger. Even if it weren't for the cover art of this German duo's
brilliant new album, there is unmistakably no other place in the
universe that has influenced the sounds and movement of what is
represented within. These drones are not passive in the least. The depth
and volume are all encompassing, and moving slowly but steadily like an
ancient and lonely large whale through the graveyards of shipwrecks, at
the very beginning of the food chain in which all living creatures
depend. Recorded live in the studio without overdubs, the first two
parts are based on live performances the band was touring around with in
2001, the first being a dark blue rumble, heavy on the low end and
marked by patient melodic movement, the second with swirling guitar
strums and leads like the sun coming through in bended bands of beams:
flickering, reflected, and refracted. The intangible overwhelming
feeling of weight and pressure is unavoidable and inescapable, like
being frozen in a dream, unable to move, but calm and comforting all the
same. Around the half-way mark, it dips back into the darker regions as
pitch and pace slow down deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper yet
into the cold, black unknown. The third part was recorded as an
afterthought, and is described as a new ending. Its brightness and
chugging backwards-sounding guitars brilliantly accent the feel that it
is a journey which is reaching its end. At this point, it feels that the
central figure in the journey seems to be a vessyl of some sort, and
the 16-minute Part 3 is thematic of a glorious resurfacing,
reintroduction to the bright light of day, and returning to solid
ground. But, as the brightness comes, so does an ominous sense that all
might not be right. The world looks different than before, the places
are familiar but everything's seemed to have changed. The credits may
roll but this is certainly not the end." [Jon Whitney / Brainwashed]
“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.“ [Aquarius
Records, 2003]
"Beauty and profundity are the evident merits of the album - like
the unity of oceanic and atmospheric elements, and namely the ocean is
most frequently mentioned association used by critics and musicians.
When you are at a depth of thousands metres, even the storm on the
surface is impossible to hear." [Dmitry Vasilyev, IEM]