From New York, but currently living in Birmingham, THOMAS TRUAX is an art rock experimental songwriter and inventor whose past work has seen collaborations with Jarvis cocker, Duke Special, Richard Hawley and Terry Pratchett as well as an album interpreting music from the films of David Lynch and writing a score for a production of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt. His tenth album, Dream Catching Songs (Blang), sees him joining forces with Siouxie and the Banshees drummer Budgie, while also crediting his self-made mechanical drum machine Mother Superior.
Featuring animal howls, the languorous, muted twang title track opens proceedings, initially semi-spoken before slipping into a narcotic croon as he sings “Heart be strong/This night might be long/Be brave, hold on”, the drums making their presence felt with the spoken noir Everything’s Going To Be Alright (“We try to play a game of poker with an incomplete deck/Between the booze and the takeaways the kitchen is a wreck”) with its synths, raspy guitar, urgent sung chorus poppier refrain and references to William Shatner, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Coco Chanel and Priti Patel. Birds & Bees goes all clattery rockabilly in a celebration of sex (“Daddy always said you’ve gotta watch out for them floozies/Momma always said you’ve gotta watch out for them floozies/But I like it”) while, with its staccato clipped guitar riff , blurping synths and rattling drums, The Anomalous Now is another talkie track where lines like “Swearing in Hungarian, strange cravings for bananas/Fear of strangers/And general mild discombobulation” can’t help but bring David Byrne to mind as he introduces the ‘band’ (“First off we have the wonderful Mother Superior on mechanical percussion/And here behind the human drum kit, our very special guest star: the one and only Budgie/Joining us with noises from the beyond, my long time business partner The Hornicator/And of course here in my arms, let’s not forget Hank the Guitar”) while Free Floaters is more of a laid back Lou Reed with a lovely image of clothes dancing on the washing line (“A sheer white skirt, red shirts from France/Some polka dotted underpants/Blowin’ in rhythm in a laundry line dance/Their undulations leave us lost in a trance”).
Seagulls caw over the intro to the relatively mainstream love song balladry of A Wonderful Kind Of Strange (“I'd become resigned to nothing more/When I washed up in my bottle on to your shore”) with its military cum Spector drum beats, to be followed by the mechanical instrumental chimes, harmonica and drum splutters of Origami Spy Arrives In A Paper Boat and a return to skewed rockabilly for the loping, finger-snapping A Little More Time that owes a touch to the melody line of Sixteen Tons.
It ends with, first, the percussive distortions and rumbles of the cool swagger of Big Bright Marble, an ode to the wonder of the sun that we’re orbiting round, and then the six-minute plus musical paranoia of The Fisherman’s Wishing Well Prayer, the vocals shifting from conspiratorial to croon before the mid-section erupts into a brief apocalyptic drone and nervy tinkling piano scales and the final ebb into the ether against a lyric about mortality and faith (“now she’s in the hospital/She’s refusing all her medicine/And we don’t dare wake her sleepwalking/The doc’s got an air of resignation/He avoids meeting my gaze/I don’t know if you’re out there God/But I hope you are because now I’m scared/And I’m gonna kneel/And stare deep into this wishing well/And I’m gonna pray”) and miracle cures (“I dip my pail, bring it back up full/Then I stroll right back to that hospital/With this dazzling medicine/Sloshing at my side”). Not one you listen to casually, but well worth exploring when you have the time to absorb.
Following a 2019 collaborative EP, Birmingham-born singer-songwriters Robert Lane and Emily Ewing join forces again under the name of MIDNIGHT ASHES, the first fruit of which is ‘Life Is For Living’, a moody, blues-flavoured number with walking beat drums with Ewing on lead and Lane harmonising on the chorus with a carpe diem message about not having any regrets when it comes to leaving this mortal coil. (https://midnightashes.bandcamp.com/releases)
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