Trouble Books

Concatenating Fields

Website:	Official Site
Label:	Bark & Hiss
Writer:	Wayne Chuter

Trouble Books are synonymous with the tags 'dream pop' and 'ambient', and whilst they're certainly true labels to an extent, to leave it at that would be a huge disservice to them, especially with 'Concatenating Fields', their third and (probably best) album.

It's obvious the band want you to listen to this album as a whole rather than to cherry pick songs as they all seem to fit together snugly into one neat package. It's almost like you're being invited to shut down all other senses for a while and give in to their swooping layered ambience.

The songs themselves are beautifully textured walls of sound, like the more interesting parts of Broken Social Scene. Discombobulated noises gently rise, loop and form into unrecognizable and new sounds, while gentle fuzzy guitars float in, out and between them. Tracks such as 'Monument to D. Flavin' slowly throw together different parts into monolithic walls of noise before breaking back down into the basic structure of the song, while 'Cocooning' envelops you in a gentle drone while defractured synth blasts quietly pass by.

The danger with this approach to texturing and layering is they may be accused of sounding samey. This is a harsh criticism though, as for Trouble Books to head off into different territories with their sound would detract from the listening experience as a whole. This is the sound of a band hitting their peak, and comes recommended to anyone looking for more out of their ambience and dream pop.