Album Review: Trouble Books - Gathered Tones
- Written by Paul Brown
There is undoubtedly something magical about a great lost album. Even when you discount the dirty pleasure of indie snobbery, there is still something warming about a really special piece of music which you share with a small number of similarly enlightened souls. Ohio band Trouble Books' last effort, The United Colors of Trouble Books was a thing of almost impossible beauty which fell squarely into that category, missed as it was by many. Given the delicate, unhurried nature of their sound, it is perhaps fitting that the acclaim for the band is starting to swell ever so gradually, including a recent spot in The Guardian's New Band of the Day column, meaning their fanbase is starting very slowly to expand.
After The United Colors, Trouble Books had a hand in two more records in the last twelve months, firstly the Endless Pool EP and then offshoot project Talons' Songs For Babes. Both were similarly lovely, and served as excellent appetisers for the follow-up to The United Colors, Gathered Tones.
As we might have expected, it is quite simply wonderful. The record has a slightly fuller sound than its predecessor, but it sacrfices none of the delicacy Trouble Books have always exhibited. Gathered Tones feels like the soft trickle of rain against a window, while The United Colors was more like the very first sensation of drizzle in the air. Right from the outset with album opener 'Ascending Kidney', it is clear that the band have lost none of their deftness. About a minute and a half into the song, a guitar line comes in, devastatingly delicate, but all the more powerful for it, and this is the most perfect example of Trouble Books' greatest strength. They can create the strongest of emotions from the most minimal of ingredients. This is a huge part of what makes them such a special band, giving them more substance in five seconds of music than some bands manage in an entire career.
The way the band structure the album has not changed from previous releases, and really, there is no reason on Earth why it should. The songs are still constructed from sleepy ambient textures, embellished with elements of noise, drones, and all manner of miscellaneous background chirruping. This is really why Gathered Tones, like all their other work, will stand up to any number of repeated listens. The ingredients might be sparse, but it's very possible you will be too spellbound by the sheer elegance of it all to notice every minute detail, so there will undoubtedly be sounds you miss the first, second or seventieth time you listen.
More than anything else, what really elevates Gathered Tones above their previous best work is its evocativeness. Every song creates its own particular mood, one which you might instinctively associate with its subject matter without even noticing it. On 'Abandoned Monorail Station' for example, even before a glance at the song title, and before hearing the line "and debris swirls around me", you might find yourself picturing a desolate, windswept platform haunted by a forlorn solitary figure. It's a similar story on final song 'Houseplants', a wonderfully spacious piece which conjures up images of a sun-bleached room filled with blanched-leafed plant life. The lyrical content, as well as the music also helps to paint these pictures of an idyllic kind of reality, telling tales about subjects as diverse and commonplace as feeding fast food to stray cats, putting the bins out, and the downright inconvenient sense of timing death sometimes has.
With Gathered Tones, Trouble Books have raised their stock even further. Their prolific release rate would suggest that they have an inexhaustible supply of these dreamy little morsels, which is all the more lucky for us. It was difficult to imagine how they could possibly top an album as perfect as The United Colors, so it would be narrow-sighted of us to wonder how they could improve on this record. All we can do is wrap ourselves in its cosy glow and wait as patiently as we can for everything else they have in store for us.