Royal Trux
Hand Of Glory

The Royal Trux are the most explosive dream creature generated in the musical landscape at the end of the millennium, the hallucinatory journey of two splendid little monsters like Jennifer Herrema and Neil Hagerty.

A bit of history, then.

At the end of the 80s, after closing the experience with Pussy Galore - the most ecstatic bacchanal you can imagine, a bungling workshop of true geniuses devoted to the deconstruction and torture of rock, from which, unsurprisingly, the most interesting projects of the American underground like Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Chrome Cranks, Boss Hog, Free Kitten, and Royal Trux indeed, would originate - Neil Hagerty meets the just sixteen-year-old Herrema, a sensual muse, toxic and bold, with whom he decides to embark on a new, exciting journey into the depths of sound. A psychic journey, dissonant and induced by tube amplifiers, a spiral staircase made of marzipan and sheets of acid that descends steeply towards the wonderland: the land of blues hypnosis and rock lust. A sort of radical rereading of rock'n'roll, just as radical were Ornette Coleman's harmolodic keys in the reinterpretation of jazz. And it is from here that the idea of Royal Trux originates - or rather, the almost physiological indigence - to evoke those same conventional, century-old forms of sound by dismantling and re-chewing them in the light of new cognitive approaches, disarming in their simplicity, perhaps superficial and ephemeral because they are connected to the "lower" needs, such as cable TV, drugs, cartoons, sex, and vintage guitars. Reelaborating all the most exciting sound paths of the last 50 years with the precise will to layer, filter, and dismantle the conventional manners of music itself. In other words, how to look with reverence at the fathers - from Robert Johnson to Bob Dylan, then Rolling Stones, Velvet Underground, Stooges, etc. - and at the same time make fun of them, declaring them dead and buried with a cynically carnival ceremony. Neil and Jennifer, glassy-eyed, bent over the lifeless body of Rock'n'Roll and decidedly intending to look for a few dollars in its wallet and then dash off...

In this sense, the release of Hand Of Glory takes on significant meaning. Not a real new album - the duo disbanded shortly after Pound For Pound, in 2000 - but an assembly of recordings recovered and dating back to 1989, a time when the Trux were taking their first steps, still intoxicated by the schizoid euphoria of Pussy Galore. Essentially, these are outtakes from that black jewel that is Twin Infinitives (1990) - one of their most challenging albums, firmly linked to that deconstruction path completed by impossible works of art like Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music and Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica - which thus do not deviate much from the stinging beauty of their reference point. Two long sections of about 20' each that emit (don't worry, it's not your stereo that's reached the end of the line!) sonic fractals in collision mixed with sparse accords from retrofuturist blues ("Domo Des Burros"), hypnotic mantras and layers of acid guitars, vivisected and modified with sparkling and analog equipment ("Boxing Story"). A collapse of sounds seemingly indigestible but that ultimately repay with the fascinating awareness of being able to decipher another, alien language. The certainty of feeling languidly alive within new paths of perception.

A new, visceral obsession from the world of Royal Trux.