Thomas Truax - Sonic Dreamer
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Thomas Truax
Sonic Dreamer
Album
Buy CD Download Now More InfoAmid the gleeful sonic invention it's easy to miss how good his songwriting can be.....Truax is shaping up nicely as one of the great rock eccentrics.
Morning StarTracklisting:
- 1 - Beehive Heart
- 2 - It's All Happening Now
- 3 - It Always Rains on Sundays
- 4 - What's The Matter With My Grey Matter
- 5 - The Cannibals Have Been Captured Our Nicole Kidman
- 6 - Around The World With The Sexy Sigh
- 7 - Balancing On A Bouncing Wire
- 8 - Ode To the Olde Elderberry
- 9 - Post Post Post Modern
- 10 - Sonic Dreamer
- 11 - Lonely Taxi
Sonic Dreamer is songwriter and mechanical innovator extraordinaire Thomas Truax's fifth studio album. The title is appropriated from a review of his 2005 album Audio Addiction: Truax is a feisty sonic dreamer...capable of crafting some very potent songs...poetically evocative and rich with melancholy, both by dint of their sounds and the texts...
(David Greenberger, Signal to Noise Magazine)
I dream in vivid colour, and in stereo as well.
- Thomas Truax
With the help of his idiosyncratic home-built instruments and rhythm machines, Thomas Truax is constantly exploring innovative ways to make new sounds to weave into his imaginative songs and captivating live performances. Layered revved motor-like hums that are the basis of opening track 'Beehive Heart' are generated by a pair of "glasses" made out of a set of small motorized fans repeatedly stroked against the body of his now-legendary invented instrument The Hornicator. Songs 'Around The World With The Sexy Sigh' and 'Post Post Post Modern' were both written on a newly-conceived instrument, The Scary Aerial, conjured up from a TV aerial. "I was looking out at the rooftops one night and I suddenly thought 'look at all those frets! They should have strings on 'em!" (Guardian interview, March 2010). Percussion comes courtesy of his pioneering motorized mechanical drum machines Mother Superior and Sister Spinster. There are also smatterings of live drums, even field recordings of ceremonial voodoo drums from New Orleans on the notably 'Lynchian' 'Balancing On A Bouncing Wire'. Most instruments are played by Truax himself, with tasteful orchestral embellishment arriving courtesy of occasional collaborator Pete Harvey. Curtis Eller, "New Yorks' Angriest Banjo Player", also makes a guest appearance on 'The Cannibals Have Captured Our Nicole Kidman'.
Sonic Dreamer skillfully combines more complex layered works with numbers subtly stripped-down to their bare essentials. As in last year's covers album 'Songs From The Films of David Lynch' a number of songs on this album are traditionally arranged, performed on recognizable instruments, or even elegantly delivered with guitar and voice alone (as in the closer, 'Lonely Taxi'). Written and recorded sporadically over a three-year period, Sonic Dreamer documents a journey through a rich variety of experiences, reflections, and emotional ups and downs. It is like a kind of strange dream in it's own right.
last updated 14th June 2010
gigs
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Friday 18th June
Taylor John's House
Coal Vaults, Canal Basin, Coventry CV1 4LY
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Saturday 19th June
Leamington Peace Festival
Pump Room Gardens
Leamington Spa, CV32 4AA
The Marguee Stage, 3pm
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Sunday 27th June
Full Moon Sunday
"Monthly Residency"
Spice Of Life
6 Moor St, Cambridge Circus (just off Charing Cross Road) London, W1D 5NA
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Saturday 24th July
Hill Farm Steventon
Oxford, OX13 6SW
Main Stage 2:30pm
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Sunday 25th July
Full Moon Sunday
"Monthly Residency"
Spice Of Life
6 Moor St, Cambridge Circus (just off Charing Cross Road) London, W1D 5NA
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Sunday 15th August
Heslaker Farm
Skipton, North Yorkshire, BD23
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Wednesday 18th August
The Grape
80 Trippet Lane Sheffield S1 4EL
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Thursday 19th August
HED at The Mad Ferret
55 Fylde Road, Lancashire, PR1 2XQ
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Friday 20th August
2 The Promenade, Gloucester Rd, Bishopston, Bristol BS7 8AL
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Sunday 22nd August
Full Moon Sunday
"Monthly Residency"
Spice Of Life
6 Moor St, Cambridge Circus (just off Charing Cross Road) London, W1D 5NA
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Saturday 28th August
Cheltenham Racecourse
Last updated 16th June 2010
