Troyka Troyka

Three's company
Troyka
Edition Records

Taking inspiration from a diverse range of sources, Troyka are not your usual jazz trio combo. With a distinct lack of extended soloing or self-aggrandising displays of virtuosity, the eleven tunes on their debut album positively delight in a series of short, sharp, shocks.

Formed in 2007 they’ve evolved a style whereby their compositions have a habit of not so much starting as almost tumbling into being. This looseness is both disarming and deceptive given their unnerving habit of abruptly snapping together and heading straight for the jugular.

A fussy tangle of bright colours and abrasive textures, their brevity and puckishness jolts and pounces in unexpected places to ensures attention is maintained throughout.

Kit Downes’ Hammond organ maintains an understated burr through most of the album with occasional high-tension flourishes, with Joshua Blackmore's keen drumming pushing and prodding the music with a surgical precision.

At the forefront of Troyka though is guitarist and principal writer, Chris Montague. His jagged mix of chords, bone-rattling slide and ingenious guitar loops invokes the kind of freewheeling scatter-gun approach of Pete Cosey or David Torn. On the track Twelve, allusions to Robert Fripp’s ProjeKct series of the late-90s also materialise.

For once the advice offered on the PR sheet happens to be right on the money: “Play Troyka loud, they won’t let you down.”