It’s jazzy, but it ain’t jazz. But what exactly is it? For what it’s worth, ornithophobia is a fear of birds. I wouldn’t want to cast aspersions on the band or their fans in the quest of some flippant quip so shall instead focus on the music, which is really quite something. Busy basslines wriggle, worm and groove beneath guitar-lines that noodle and meander in tightly-woven math-derived motifs and there’s no doubting Troyka’s technical capabilities even as little as a minute into the album.
Pitched as ‘a fine collage of electronic, hip-hop, jazz and prog-rock influences’, the experimental British trio’s third album is certainly hard to locate within the obvious genre confines.
It’s not all mellow head-wobbling muso-muscle-flexing, either: while tight and infinitely complex rhythms pin everything in place, there’s abundant room for discord and arrhythmic detours. Moments of ‘Magpies’ sees the threesome get downright dark before warping into some choppy new-wave influenced waters. Elsewhere, samples of narrative float in and out of semi-ambient passages and explosions of noise disrupt the flow.
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Commercial it isn’t: cerebral and challenging it is. And that’s precisely why ‘Ornithophobia’ deserves attention.
Troyka Online
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