Monolith Cocktail Blog

ALBUM REVIEW/Dominic Valvona
Photo credit: Rafal Wojczal

Trupa Trupa ‘B Flat A’
(Glitterbeat Records) 11^th February 2022

With lofty literary metaphors connected to Nabokov’s dystopian ‘puddles’, a tumult of historical oppression and the miasma of Covid bearing down upon them the Gdansk band Trupa Trupa work trauma and unease into a counterpoint of both the abrasive and trippier psychedelic on their new and second album for the magnificent trailblazers Glitterbeat Records.

Working through society’s divisive destruction, anxieties and paranoia, the Polish group excels at composing claustrophobic and propulsive maelstroms of knotted despondency and protestation. That musical scale album title, B Flat A, may well be an indication of the notes, moodiness that’s used to navigate these seemingly dreadful times. Far from a cataclysmic misery however, the mood and music escalate from a gnarly tumult into the languidly psychedelic: If Syd Barrett had declined that last bad acid tab and gone on to front Pink Floyd in the 70s and gone on to embrace the post-punk scene in the 80s then it may very well have sounded something like the flange fanned dreamy ‘Lit’. Actually, the ghost of Syd is strung throughout, wafting in and out of the brilliant halcyon backbeat kooky ‘Uniforms’, and on the George Harrison melodious ‘All And All’. 

Shades of the Olivia Tremor Control, Jeff Simmons, early king Crimson rub up against Crispy Ambulance, Fugazi, Killing Joke, Mew, Wire and Can on the junction of light and shade; the sinewy taut and drifting. From the more relaxed resignation to growling industrial heaviness Trupa Trupa turn malady, melancholy into an artform. The final lo fi emitted title-track finishes with a suffocating atmosphere of C86 and no wave; the group present but indolently obscured under the smog; distant as if already submerged beneath the oppressive waves.  

Trupa Trupa may very well have produced their best and most complete album yet; already a contender for the albums of the year list in my view. What a opening statement to make in the third year of the pandemic!

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Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years I’ve featured and supported music, musicians and labels we love across genres from around the world that we think you’ll want to know about. No content on the site is paid for or sponsored and we only feature artists we have genuine respect for /love. If you enjoy our reviews (and we often write long, thoughtful ones), found a new artist you admire or if we have featured you or artists you represent and would like to buy us a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail to say cheers for spreading the word, then that would be much appreciated.