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TRIGON

30 Jahre Traumzeit

There are many exciting passages to be experienced during the lengthy duration of Trigon's latest album 30 Jahre Traumzeit. This jazz-rock instrumental power trio with the emphasis firmly on the rockier side of any jazz-rock moniker come from the city of Karlsruhe, Germany. Their previous album was released in 2011 and was aptly called 2011.

30 Jahre Traumzeit celebrates the bands thirtieth anniversary with a collection of live tunes such as, the excellent slow flickering Mysterious Masterplan and previously unreleased live jam studio pieces, which frequently possess an organic feel and exhibit a spontaneous air. The freshness of the band's performance makes much of what is on offer very appealing.

The music is expressively aggressive, creating undulating ripples and tempestuous shockwaves in its wake. It robustly explodes in fiery bursts that will have fans of instrumental guitar-led bands like Sweden’s Plankton quivering with delight.

The trio's performance is genuinely thrilling. The compositions exhibit an evolving unforced nature, where the relationship between what is arranged and what is improvised, is successfully bridged. In this respect, much of the music has a wonderful edge of the seat intensity that is able to carry the listener away on the rock-crested pinnacles of its surging jam-based compositions.

Guitarist Rainer Lange's extraordinary deft and muscular fret work is at the forefront of the band's sound. However, the other two members of the trio provide a robust framework for him to excel. The drumming of Tihomir Lozanovski is busy and powerful. The bass offers a perfect foil to the rhythmic beat of Lozanovski and offers a bustling and boisterous foundation for Rainer Lange's inspiring solos. On the rare occasions when the bass takes a more prominent role as in Der Tanga it provides a buttock shaking bottom end tone that threatens to rhythmically rattle anything in its path.

Rainer Lange is a wonderfully expressive guitarist and the loosely coiled compositions on offer manage to maintain interest throughout despite the somewhat limited instrumentation used. There were many times that I sat open mouthed whilst he imperiously made his guitar sing.

Stylistically, the album flings out a conveyor belt of, wave upon wave, of loosely formed, yet expressive guitar instrumentals. This makes things rather hard to bear and on more than one occasion, might leave you crossing your fingers, in the vain hope that a keyboard might enter the fray to mix things up a bit.

Nevertheless, some tunes like Pulsar have such an accessible form and melody that its head rolling motif stays in the memory long after its last notes have receded. Its memorable, easily assimilated nature, full of psychedelic verve stands out and offers some degree of contrast to the other tracks.

That is not to say that all of the tunes sound similar; they do not! They all have identifiable characteristics and exhibit memorable parts, but the use of the same limited instrumentation can have an effect of bludgeoning the senses, so that tunes if you are not listening carefully appear to segue into each other creating a powerful never-ending multi-layered, but nonetheless satisfying course of guitar, drums and guitar music.

In this respect, the album is a little too long for my tastes. After about forty minutes, brain, ears, knocking knees and tapping toes begin to complain from the relentless assault on the senses that the wailing, howling and screeching of Rainer Lange's delivers. Until the point when tolerance is tested, those forty minutes are blissfully exhilarating. Needless to say this album is best experienced in high volume and in short bursts.

Rücklicht is one of the best pieces on the album. It begins with a bass and drum interlude. The rhythm of the piece stands out and offers a little more variation than is apparent on some of the other pieces. The guitar introduces itself delicately and then distortedly frizzles into action to dominate proceedings.

There is much to admire about the performances captured on 30 Jahre Traumzeit. Whilst some might find, that the loosely structured arrangements and guitar heavy compositions lack subtlety, what is undeniable, is the skillful and impressive performance that resides at their core.

Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed this collection of tunes and I will undoubtedly dip into this high-energy album frequently in the future.

Owen Davies - DPRP 30. December 2018