Posts Tagged ‘Ulrich Troyer’

Ulrich Troyer – Autostrada del Brennero

Posted: 2 August 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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4Bit Productions – 19th July 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Ulrich Troyer’s output this year has taken an interesting turn. While he’s often favoured comparatively short-form releases (NOK 2020, released in 2020, surprisingly enough, featured six tracks originally released on a 3” CD twenty years earlier, bolstered by additional material to render a full-length album, while other albums in his catalogue contain only four tracks, or more very short ones). But ‘Autostrada del Brennero’ represents this third seven-inch release of the year after four years of silence. However, while ‘Moments’, which we covered here in March was a standalone release, ‘Autostrada del Brennero’ is a companion to ‘Echoes’, released in May, and both are prefatory pieces to the forthcoming album, Transit Tribe, slated for release later this year.

As with Echoes, Troyer has brought on board guest to feature here, with reggae luminary Diggory Kenrick contributing his signature flute to the lead track, and Taka Noda bringing melodica to flipside ‘Brennerautobahn’.

Continuing his pursuit of some deep dubby vibes, as formed the basis of Dolomite Dub, and the Songs for William trilogy, ‘Autostrada del Brennero’ is four and a half minutes of spacious, echo-drenched rimshots which crack out from shuffling drums and cut through spectacularly swampy bass. It’s got groove, but it’s low, slow, and mellow, with Kenrick’s flute adding an almost trippy folk aspect, which is a perfect counterpoint to the fizzling space-rock synth details which burst like laser-beam Catherine wheels.

Either my ears are deceiving me, or ‘Brennerautobahn’, which has exactly the same running time, is the same track but with the flute substituted with the melodica, and as such, this release follows the format of the previous two, where an alternative version occupies the B-side.

This was, of course, common practice on old reggae releases, whereby the B-side would contain a dub version – often simply as a ‘version’ – of the A-side. Here, there’s a certain irony in maintaining this tradition when the A-side is already essentially a dub version, and one doubts this irony will be lost on the artist.

Both cuts are solid – sparse yet dense, confident experiments in bass frequencies and massive echo and reverb it’s difficult to resist the urge to nod along to, slow, heavy-headed, mellow to the max. Good vibes, for sure.

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Ulrich Troyer – MOMENTS

Posted: 21 March 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Well, this is succinct, and a release most definitely well-suited to the format. I was reminded following a recent post that vinyl is not a friend of the environment. It’s a hard fact to take. I grew up with vinyl, I love vinyl. But then, petrolheads make the same defence of fast cars, and people who love overseas travel and cruises likewise. Well, maybe. Although I doubt many grew up with cruises, the most environmentally-damaging of all tourism, being primarily the domain of affluent retirees, and they don’t give a fuck about the environment because they’re not going to be here to see it burn.

Only today, I read a news item about how younger people suffer more mental health issues, suffer from greater anxiety over the future, while boomers sleep pretty well at night. The findings included that ‘Nearly 60% of young people approached said they felt very worried or extremely worried… More than 45% of those questioned said feelings about the climate affected their daily lives… Three-quarters of them said they thought the future was frightening. Over half (56%) say they think humanity is doomed.’

So I have every reason to feel conflicted here, and I can’t pretend that everything’s ok. But then the same people who are worried are also getting into buying showcase vinyl. I have no conclusion to this diversion: it’s simply something that’s rubbing as I approach this release, and we learn that ‘Ulrich Troyer’s MOMENTS transforms classical & acoustic guitar recordings through tape machine treatment, guitar effect pedals, analog & digital effects into a shimmering soundscape. The combination of textures and effects generates excitement and invites to listen repeatedly, surprising each time with new details’, and offers ‘Fractured tones, beautifully rooted and held together by the tune underneath.’

Troyer’s own words resonate on a personal level I had not expected. He explains that “The inspiration for the composition MOMENTS is based on personal experiences of the last years. I strived to achieve a beautiful and pleasant life for myself and my family through diligent and consistent work. In the hope that at some point “everything would be beautiful”, I lost sight of the moment – the here & now. Two serious cases of illness in my family made me realize that it will never be “nice and pleasant at some point”, but that there are just always beautiful moments in between, that cannot be captured and that need to be consciously enjoyed and experienced.”

His words articulate – albeit in vague terms -the difficulty of coming to terms with the fact that life is not what you expect, that it’s not viable to pin hope on a perfect future moment. The moments of enjoyment, or joy, of pleasure, emerge through the cracks in the face of bleak news.

On learning that my wife had – optimistically – years to live (it proved to be only months), we packed in as much as was physically possible. Making memories, as they say. They weren’t all good. Sometimes she was too ill to enjoy anything; some trips got cut short because she simply wasn’t up to it. She would rather we didn’t remember trips being marred by her being red-hot angry or through-the-floor down, and so we move on, and focus on what we did achieve and the better times.

In times of darkness, music so often provides comfort, and more, and this is clearly true for Ulrich Troyer. He writes, ‘I feel the most intense moments of happiness when I have the opportunity to completely immerse myself in a piece of music for a certain amount of time while composing, playing or listening… Music as such has always accompanied me since childhood and has been there for me in both beautiful and difficult moments. I started learning classical guitar when I was ten. I discovered electronic music in Vienna in the 90s and have been addicted to it ever since. With MOMENTS I wanted to interweave my musical beginnings with my current musical language and expression.’

The two compositions are both under five minutes long, and as such perfectly suited to a 7” release, and across the two pieces, Troyer presents jolting ruptures and blasts of glitch, occasional churns and crackles, and, flickering and out of the mix, amidst bulbous bass and busy ambience and a conglomeration of noise, some tuneage. Some of it’s quite pleasant: some of it is more discordant, difficult noise.

Troyer certainly packs a lot into these moments, and this is an interesting release, which places patience at the fore.