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Nadja/Troum – Dominium Visurgis

Nadja/Troum - Dominium Visurgis

CD, Transgredient Records, 2010
www.nadjaluv.ca / www.troum.com

In a beautifully designed 8-page digipack – greytones with copper – hides a CD made by two of the worldwide top 10 artists (or should it say top 3) in the genre of guitar drones. Conceived, recorded and finished in april 2008 it is now released on Troum’s own label Transgredient Records.
The fifty minutes are divided in 3 parts, simply entitled Part 1, 2 and 3 (though there is nothing simple about the music). The 2 projects each have 2 members, through which the total of these sound experiments is quite complex. The range of sounds is between nice tapestries of ambience towards sculptures of feedback and analog squeaking and weeping oscillators.
As a listener I am not that familiar with the works of Nadja (only having come accross the occasional track) but I am, however, a long time admirer of Troum. Often we hear a ritualistic layer in the works of Troum, but this release isn’t that ritual in nature. I think this work is way more mystic in its origin. Maybe it’s the way it was recorded (direct, no overdubs or processing) or maybe it’s the influence of Nadja. Whichever it is, this CD is definitely an addition to the Troum collection. And therefore also an addition to the Nadja collection I suppose…
The three compositions are each signed with a certain emotion that comes forward when listening. “Part 1” can be seen as the most dreamy / melancholic of the three, while “Part 2” if the most noisy or maybe we should say ‘intrusive’ or ‘confronting’. “Part 3” – which is also the longest with its 25 minutes of duration – is the most ‘realistic’.
In the end, we have a journey for the mind in which we dream, have a nightmare and wake up to realize it was only a dream. Troum and Nadja only emphasize the fact that music is a lot like life, and together they wrote the soundtrack for it.

[8.5/10]

— Bauke van der Wal

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