Thomas Truax – Trolls, Girls and Lullabies

Thomas Truax first performed the music of Trolls, Girls & Lullabies last September. Rather dramatically, he did so from the confines of a metal container suspended above a water-filled stage, as part of Theatre Dortmund’s radical (and still running) production of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt. Now presented in album form, the natural question to ask of these covers, instrumentals and original songs is: do they succeed on their own terms, when divorced from such spectacular staging? Overall, the answer’s positive.

Existing fans will take pleasure in some recognisable eccentricities, including the curiosity cabinet of homemade instruments (now featuring the ‘saxogramophone,’ introduced on a toy box rendition of Grieg’s Peer Gynt prelude), and his menacing way with a cover version – most notably a prowling (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction. The original compositions feel more intrinsically wed to their point of origin and therefore less likely to encourage revisits, but nevertheless Trolls… affirms Truax’s strange powers. [Chris Buckle]