Time Trout - Stuck Like Jane Austen (2023) [Hi-Res]

OTOroku is thrilled to present the debut album from Time Trout, comprising fourteen tracks improvised in real time. Seemingly summoned out of the ether, these songs arrive fully-formed, with an awkward, jagged personality that moves, all knees and elbows, with a bristling, roiling, unstoppable momentum. It’s a constant high-wire performance, with all four participants looking relentlessly forward lest a glimpse below causes the whole thing to drop. Thankfully, the balance is never in doubt.

From the off, drummer Stephen Moses and bass guitarist Dave Mandl create a series of hypnotic locked grooves, that simultaneously draw you in and subtly pull the rug out from underneath you all at once; like repeatedly stumbling down the last couple of steps to the dance floor. Over this hypnotic ouroboros of a rhythm section, Marcus Cummins’ saxophone deftly feints and weaves between the cracks, running the gamut from tentative, staccato stabs to giddily whirling lyricism.

The three instrumentalists constantly trade emphases in such an assured way that you quickly stop trying to focus in on one part and give yourself over to the single, intricate whole; running through which, like a bright red thread through the labyrinth, is Viv Corringham’s astonishing spoken word vocal performance. A restless stream of consciousness that seems to have the primal urgency of a message delivered in a dream, Corringham mixes Delphic abstractions with bracingly lucid implorations, the whole performance delivered with such seamlessness that it’s hard to tell whether the lyrics are channeling the music or vice versa. The answer, of course, is both.

- Viv Corringham / voice
- Marcus Cummins / soprano and alto saxophones, ocarina, bells, shruti box
- Dave Mandl / bass guitar

1.01 - Time Trout - Stuck Like Jane Austen (5:36)
1.02 - Time Trout - Louise (5:20)
1.03 - Time Trout - Frosted Bats (3:03)
1.04 - Time Trout - The Time Is Appalling (2:54)
1.05 - Time Trout - Okonomiyaki (3:08)
1.06 - Time Trout - Secrets in the Open Sea (7:50)
1.07 - Time Trout - Spinning Eggs (4:44)
1.08 - Time Trout - Dark Light (7:44)
1.09 - Time Trout - Heavy Jelly (5:25)
1.10 - Time Trout - Smart City (9:06)
1.11 - Time Trout - Stubbornly (3:42)
1.12 - Time Trout - Feet Facing Forward (4:03)
1.13 - Time Trout - Preserved (2:07)
1.14 - Time Trout - How Far Can Words Go? (5:00)