Troth - Uncut Flowers CD

Spent plenty of time around these parts spilling my guts about how much I love the last three Troth LPs, so this CD comp of early EPs (including the long-gone tape on Moontown) and compilation tracks has been a welcome moment to revisit earlier material I haven’t heard in a while, bringing their trajectory as a group into more pronounced focus. 

What makes Troth so great is the their restless creative evolution. There’s no resting on laurels, but a constant drive to create in a manner that extends themselves and pushes one another forward. It’s evident in these early recordings, which really aren’t that old (strange to think the earliest release here is from 2019 considering how prolific they are) but more clearly situates their output within a kind of post-noise/post-electronic music lineage.

The roots of the duo’s current work are all here—the ambiguous field recordings, the ambient drift, the nods to folk traditions, the looming industrial churn—but with genre boundaries that are seemingly a little more defined than their more recent releases. As Chris Colla points out in the liner notes, it’s a mix that seems to reflect the juxtaposition of natural beauty and shipping-port murk of their home base of Newcastle. 

A great insight into the recent history of the group for those (like me!) who slept on their early releases!

-Mitch