Trotsky Icepick
Poison Summer

When one decides to name the band that way, there are two possibilities: either they are a bunch of jokers, or a band that really knows what they're doing: the latter...

Brilliant, fun, irreverent, ironic, lighthearted: it's the same feeling I had when I played volleyball against an opposing team that, on the surface, did nothing exceptional but in the end won 25-17, 25-19, 25-16. In short, they kicked your ass and you didn't even notice. That's what Trotsky is like, the grinders of engaging fun. There's a danger that this music, disguised as pop, could go unnoticed, but no mistake could be greater... Our friends from the west coast don't need showcases; they're so deeply immersed in that magnificent lightness acquired by giving up vanity that they invite you with a smile to try out a toy that reveals itself to be of pure playfulness, and that is a true gift.

On a first listen, the tracks seem immediately accessible in their carefree nature, but with subsequent listens, they evolve into a denser fluid that conveys a Californian Buddha's smile. A playful relaxation within a musical construction of rare beauty, there's an awareness of an ephemeral quality that is essential to us and rewards us without the heavy burdens of competition. The result is that the songs involve you more and more, like a dance of the seven veils, and at the last (veil) there's a pleasant surprise that fits the fun side of each of us.

Key members of the group, Vitus Mataré & Kjehl Johansen, after their experiences, and what experiences, with Urinals, 100 Flowers, The Last, proclaimed in 1986 the arrival at a happy island with a slightly picture vinyl, streaked with white lines. The subsequent proof in "Baby" for the SST confirms the group's verve, but it's in this first work that you truly taste the crystalline immediacy of an enlightened joy.

They tell, especially through the notes, ordinary stories of everyday life where there's no tension, only good memories of vacations, afternoons, friends, and evenings under the moonlight drinking orange soda with people who don't judge. Let's stick, if possible, to the tracklist of the first 1986 vinyl edition because when it was reissued by SST, the original order of the tracks was changed.

And if you feel the need for a cooling cocktail, mix Trotsky Icepick, Camper Van Beethoven, and Ten Foot Faces, and the straw will never leave your lips... like that chisel from the brain. Ice! Ice, Icepick baby!